Sunset

Sorry for the delay in getting our playoff post on the board, but I have been busy learning about standby generators, water pumps and digital thermostats. I have learned much, especially that I missed the day in journalism school when they taught thermostat installation. With any luck, everything will be back to normal when Bonnie gets back, but mum’s the word until then, OK?

I intend to do the annual season wrap-up and team awards post sometime this week, but won’t attempt that in this wrap-up. For one thing, I want to see who wins the championship and want to offer some constructive suggestions for the entire CCSL going forward. I’m sure everyone will appreciate that.

Anyway, back to our final game of the year. The Pen & Pencil Club softball team made the Center City Softball League playoffs for the first time in three years. We’ll get into the new and improved and somewhat more lax standards of our postseason at another time, but, hey, it beat a sharp stick in the eye.

Truth be told, under the old standards – top four teams advance – we would have made the playoffs this season as well, but it was kind of a weird year, so it felt kind of… well, weird.

Starting with the end, we lost to our long-time friends/foes at Bishop’s Collar by a score of 14-6. It was a 3-3 game after three innings, and just 5-3 entering the bottom of the fifth. It was a game. We scrapped and played as well as possible despite a thin squad for the evening and it was a remarkable effort against a solid, well-stocked team that advanced to the league championship round.

As has been our issue a few times, we didn’t hit well enough. Six runs doesn’t win very often. We had just 12 hits and we couldn’t sustain any innings. Oh, fucking well.

We didn't get to this base often enough, or the next one.

For the evening, Steve Lynch had three hits, and two hits each for Russ Krause, Brian Donlen and Keith Craig. That’s nine of our 12 hits, so the other seven spots in the order were struggling, including the Management. Collar put together one big inning and that was the ballgame. They had nine players with at least two hits. We had four. The top five hitters in our batting order were 10-for-14. The next six were 2-for-17. Hope Nevins had a good time at his spa retreat or wherever he was.

Regardless, it was a great season and we should be proud of it. We were 8-5 in the regular season, had some terrific wins and drank an awful lot of beer (and some champagne!). There might have been some records set in that regard.

Stay tuned for the wrapup post. Remember that the All-Star Game is Tuesday, Aug. 6. Our official representatives will be announced later this week, but the tradition is that all the starters are drunk by the third inning, so anyone who shows up with a glove gets to play. There will be burgers on the grill, and I will bring the team cooler just because Brennan wants to spend some more money.

And the pregame speech sucked, too.