I Am The God Of Hellfire And I Bring You....YAZ!

Well, where to start? Inverted pyramid doesn’t really work here. Inverted pyromaniacs, perhaps.
I have it on good authority that Hoagiefest did not end Tuesday/Wednesday until approximately 6 a.m. for the last stragglers. Reports are mixed on whether any of the Red Inks were still in the mix, but I fear Captain Yaz might have still been leaping the flames. We’ll find out on Tuesday if he got singed, or, like Icarus, melted his wings when he flew too close to the fire pit and deep well of gin, vodka and Nubian sweat on Dairy 2. Ah, to be young again.
Anyway, the annual festival of prepared meats and artisan Italian breads was an unquestioned success, which is slightly more than you can say about the softball results for the Pen & Pencil Club. We split our games this week, losing in extra innings to Bishop’s Collar and then winning, somewhat closer than necessary, to the Franklin Orphans.

Let’s start with the most recent stuff, which is so much easier for me to remember. We beat the Orphans 12-7, and if we had been missing one more player perhaps, or if Liz’s dog had taken a bit longer to weedle, then we might have actually been in trouble.
As it was, we cut it close enough, tied 3-3 in the bottom of the fourth. The Franklins gave up 25 runs to Art and 24 to the Fleisher and, well, it’s been a tough go for them after being set adrift by the Catahoula Runaways.
This was a team hungry for a win and we were a team that can drop a turd in the punchbowl now and then. As it turned out, we scored eight in the bottom of the fourth and that was enough to put the game away.
That’s a good thing, because we didn’t score again. On the evening, we had 20 hits and Franklin had 20 hits. Our good fortune was to bunch them together and the Franklin was unable to do so.

We got three hits from Marcus Hayes and Dan McElhatton, and two hits from Liz “On my way” Gabor, Keith Craig, Steve Lynch, both home runs and a total of four RBIs, Chris Brennan and Mike Galan.
Highlights were the triumphant return of Jon Snyder, the fence climbing of Lynch, the run scored by Ellen Kenney and damn near everything that necessitated putting Craig in the outfield. Good win and then Hoagiefest, which made it even better.
Working backward, we lost on Monday and that sucked. It was a big game for us, against the Collar, and we were in nice position to come away with a win. Alas.
We led 6-1 heading into the bottom of the fifth and lost the game, giving up two in the fifth, two in the seventh to tie the game and, alas again, a run in the eighth to lose it.
What you notice is that we didn’t score during that span, which didn’t help. What might have also hurt along the way is that we left runners in scoring position in three innings. We’ll see the Collar again, probably twice, so we’ll have a shot to get even.
In that game, we got two hits from Russ Krause, Mark Nevins and Lynch, and had just 14 hits overall in eight innings. That ain’t enough, and after taking a 4-0 lead after the first inning, we went to sleep and had just 14 batters in the next four innings. Had a chance to take charge and didn’t. Oh fucking well.
This coming week, we play the Tap Room and that will be interesting as always, but last week came with fire and it came with provolone. That’s always better.