Newbie initiation proposal

WHEREAS Pew’s Your Daddy is the most popular softball team to ever flirt with a .500 record and

WHEREAS The Daddies’ roster often extends to the second page of whatever random scrap of paper we are using to score and

WHEREAS In last night’s humiliating 32-8 loss to a bunch of scrubs with a LOSING record, the Daddies did not even complete two full rounds of the batting order and

WHEREAS The Daddies attendance is so wildly unpredictable and maddeningly fluctuating that just a few short weeks ago, the Daddies literally had to resort to begging strangers to play on the team to complete the line-up and

WHEREAS The Daddies captains cannot control the weather and order up a 60 percent chance of rain every Wednesday to keep the turnout manageable and limited to the die-hards and

WHEREAS Everybody just wants to friggin hit!

NOW THEREFORE  Pew’s Your Daddy adopts the following requirements for new recruits (hereafter referred to as “newbies”), in following the principle that every Daddy must be good, fun or drunk

FIRST, that before a newbie’s initial appearance in the field, that newbie must complete one of the following tasks:

1. Hit three pitched balls over the heads of all outfielders in pre-game batting practice
2. Accompany Pew’s Your Daddy on a post-game trip to Froggy Bottom Pub, 2142 Pennsylvania Avenue, Northwest, Washington, D.C. and partake of the team’s post-game revelry and/or bitch session, with activities including, but not limited to, strategy setting, shit talking, pocket billiards and flip cup. Completion of this task will be validated by the fact that Mary Kate, the most awesomest bartender in the world, knows said newbie’s food order.
3. Bring at least twelve (12) cans of a low-quality American beer to the softball field, along with adequate red cups and/or Koozies, for the shared enjoyment of all members of Pew’s Your Daddy and their guests. Said newbie must shotgun two cans of beer and then, to the satisfaction of the captain or the captain’s designate, still be able to bat decently.

SECOND, that on at least one occasion within the first three games a newbie plays, the newbie must take home the bat bag or equipment bag and return it to the field for the next week’s game and

THIRD, that every newbie must recite, whenever asked by a member of Pew’s Your Daddy, his or her connection to the Pew Charitable Trusts, Pew Research Center or current or former Pew employees or members of Pew’s Your Daddy. The newbie must also explain, in painstaking detail, his or her prior athletic experience, from the time of birth to the present day, so as to bullshit a reason for why, in subsequent games, he or she ought to be placed higher in the batting order and

FOURTH, that newbies bat last

RESOLVED, by the power (none) invested in me, Dan Vock, captain ex-officio, by Pew’s Your Daddy, on this 30th day of June 2011.

DADDIES’ BARRAGE LEAVES MATTHEWS’ MINIONS BLIND, BERATED AND (BARELY) BEATEN

BAD CALLS, BELLIGERENT BASEWOMAN NEARLY LEAD TO BENCH-CLEARING BRAWL

GNATS’ FIELD — It wasn’t just the game on the line with the hotly disputed seventh-inning call; it was much, much more. It could, in fact, have changed the trajectory of Pew’s Your Daddy’s entire season.

Win, and the Daddies would advance to 4-2. Win, and a hard-fought winning streak would extend to four games. Win, and the humiliation of the early season losses would dissipate. Win, and the Daddies could walk off the field — with a crowd of boyfriends, girlfriends and spouses looking on, no less — with heads held high. Victory has many fathers, indeed, but it has even more Daddies.

Lose, though, and the Daddies would fall back to middling status, hanging out with the stoner C students at .500. Lose, and the Daddies’ improved fielding, the quick thinking, the dead-on throws, the team cohesion, the marvelous contributions of captain ex officio Kavan “Long Knives” Peterson, would all be for naught. The acrimony and back-biting in the clubhouse would boil over to the Frog. The birthday celebration of Mike “Bones” Bolinder would certainly be called off.

So when the daydreaming first base coach from Softball With Chris Matthews called his runner safe in the top of the seventh inning, the Daddies exploded.

A game full of grievances came flooding forward. Oh, those Vox Global image makers—whatever their tenuous connection to Chris Matthews—really pushed the wrong buttons. First, an early-inning Daddies’ throw from the outfield to third (right in front of the Daddies’ dugout) was nullified. A dozen Pewsters saw the play right in front of them; the Cableman, of course, arrived too late. But the Punditocracy ruled him safe. Then, a flip from the pitcher to second met the same verdict. “The tie goes to the runner,” was the gospel according to these Matthewses. Trouble is, there were no ties.

And then there was the attack at second base. Rookie runner Mariana “No Cleats Needed” Gomez flawlessly executed a slide into second to get under a tag. But before she could get to her feet, the vicious Vox basewoman elbowed Gomez in the gut. Stuck underneath an opponent who showed no signs of moving, Gomez pulled out a move from her field hockey days: the jock ass-slap. That got the fielder’s attention, and she got back up with a pout. It did not happen fast enough, though, for Dan “The Crash Man” Vock. Seeing the cheap shot to his girlfriend (and fortified with liquid courage), he pressed the issue, with what can only be described as eloquent prose and intimidating gestures. But for the sage words of a few teammates, the night’s marquee event could have been Vock vs. the Voxes.

There was a reason, though, that the Pig Latin Propagandists were so ornery. When Ivan “Gray Beard” Sciupac led off the sixth inning, the Daddies were staring at a six-run deficit. Then, seven of the next eight batters crossed the plate. Gomez, for good measure, turned out to be the tying run. (Poor Richard “Dewey” Auxier, alas, was the odd man out in the sixth, after belting out the Daddies’ only home run of the day in the fourth.)  By the time the sixth was over, Pew put up eight on the Voxers, and were hanging on to an 18-16 lead.

The anger on both sides only intensified at the top of the seventh. Shortstop Sciupac backhanded a bouncing ball deep in the infield, then whipped around and hurled the ball to Jeffrey “Cicero” Lehman. The trusty first baseman held his hand up. The ball hissed through the air then hit his glove with a thud. A half second later, the foot of the Vox runner hit the bag. It was a clean play, beautifully executed. And it didn’t matter.

The first base coach ruled his runner safe. The Daddies looked at each other in disbelief. Another bad call, and this time, the game was on the line. Pitcher Scott “Success” Clement threw down his glove. The torrent of expletives he unleashed echoed so forcefully, it stopped business in the West Wing. His chest puffed out, his face red, Clement menacingly approached the Matthews dugout. Deep in left field, his better half, Nicole “Murnum” Muryn, started toward the infield to either back up Clement or, more likely, to prevent him from doing anything dumb.

But Clement was not alone in his rage. A cacophony of complaints came streaming at the clueless coach from the Daddies until his teammates, too, joined in the barking, hissing and gesticulating.

Now, the agreement among teams in the Congressional Softball League is clear: The base coach’s ruling stands. But a corollary to that condition is that the coaches pay attention and rule fairly, lest their opponents also make egregious calls.

One of the faulty coach’s own teammates admitted that the call was bad, but said it must stand anyway. Bolinder would have none of it. “If he made the wrong call,” the veteran third baseman screamed from the dugout, “reverse it!” And just when the normally hot-headed Auxier, of all people, quieted his infield, one of the PR Pros walked off the sideline and intruded onto the field of play, approaching the Daddies, screaming at the top of his lungs, “Everybody, calm down! Just calm down!”

Somehow, the Daddies kept their cool, but it very nearly bit them in the ass. Only two runs back, the Hardballers played small ball for the next few batters. The offending runner advanced. When he came to third, Sciupac had an outside chance for revenge. But instead of chancing a dangerous throw to get him out, the shortstop held the ball to avoid an error. The next play, the rogue runner scored.

Thankfully, though, that was it. Pew put the game away with two more routine outs and did not even need the benefit of last ups. The teams lined up, and shook hands, without incident. The Daddies season was secure, and their victory, earned in the most trying of circumstances, was unquestioned.

Patres, as the Vox masters of mangled Latin now know, illegitimum non carborundum.

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BONES RECRUITS RINGERS, DRIVES IN WINNING RUN

Guest contributor

So you already know the Daddies snatched a wild victory out of the gripping clutch of defeat for one of the most glorious comebacks we’ve ever known.

What is perhaps most impressive is that our victory was achieved in the absence of many of the titans of Daddies softball—veteran and rookie alike. (All you fucking pussies who didn’t show up because it was too hot … fuck you. That’s right. If we could have thrown full beer cans at you from our dusty perch on the Mall, we would have.)

The scant few who did show were nervous early on, as Sarah Levy was the only lady to brave the sun and show up, despite numerous and patronizing phone calls to “Original Recipe” Kat and Epod.

In the end, the Daddies came back from an early 9-2 deficit to win 12-11 off Bones’ walk-off double that brought Sarah home for the winning run in bottom of the 7^th inning. Other players got hits and made solid plays (and several terrible plays—see the 9-2 deficit), but there was only one MVP of this game and his name is Mike “Bones” Bolinder.

Not only did Bones drive in the game winning run, but if not for his pregame heroics, the Daddies wouldn’t have been in a position to win anyway. Facing an eminent forfeit for lack of female players, Bones—unannounced to anyone on the team—left our huddle and tracked down the first two attractive girls he could find. After his initial fears that they would respond to him in Dutch or French or some other fuckin’ language that isn’t American were relieved, he convinced them that playing softball on the Mall in 97 degree heat was the most Patriotic thing they could do.

And so the team was introduced to Britt “Big Money” and Madeleine Hoppock “Shades.”  We suited them up in unclaimed Daddies shirts, gave them beers and sent them into the field. And to our very pleasant surprise, these girls could play—hitting for multiple RBIs and making plays in the field while playing barefoot.

Some credit should also go out to Epod, who did (finally) show up around the fifth inning and gave the Daddies the final boost we needed to overcome whatever team it was we played. But she neither hit a homerun nor got engaged during the game, so I really don’t remember much about her performance.

We may not have fielded a full team, kept an accurate scorecard, or stayed adequately hydrated, but damn it, the Daddies won. Let’s do it again tomorrow.

RALLY ON THE MALL: DADDIES OVERTAKE REDS FOR SEASON’S FIRST WIN

RED REDS WHINE ABOUT RULES REQUIRING WOMEN IN COED SOFTBALL

MT. WASHINGTON — Frustration pulsated in the Daddies dugout prior to their third game. The stench of defeat and a few stale beers from the two prior games hung thick in the air. Maybe the whispers were right: Maybe Pew’s Your Daddy forgot its winning ways.

Maybe the Pissed-off Patriarchs would be one of those, gag, losing teams. The teams with pretty, clean outfits who couldn’t turn a double play or chase down a runner or hit a home run. The teams that do not care who is batting next. The teams that might as well play kickball.

Ha! The Daddies are none of those things. If there was any doubt, the Conseo Reds could testify otherwise. The man-heavy Scarlet Squad fell to the Daddies because the Pewsters willed it so.

Elizabeth “E-Pod” Podrebarac had the will. During batting practice, the soon-to-be-Sciupac called her shot. She had set a goal of getting a home run, and she thought the day that her fiancé was stuck on the sidelines, where he would have no choice to watch, would be the perfect opportunity. She pointed to right field and vowed to make the Reds pay with the unforgettable taunt, “If I ever get a home run, it’s going to have to go over there.”

Sure enough, with the Daddies trailing 7-1 in the bottom of the first, E-Pod’s prediction ran true. The plucky prognosticator put a line drive over the head of the second baseman. When she heard the calls to keep running as she rounded second, a lottery-winner smile pushed against her ears. She practically skipped home.

But even with solo shots from Podrebarac and Alec “Skip Step” Tyson, the Daddies still trailed the Bro Patrol at the end of one frame. The Dude Crew attracted fewer women than a Froggy Bottom pool game and tried to skate through with only one female. They were dismayed to discover that there are rules that actually cover such contingencies in order to avoid automatic disqualification.

The simple act of counting to “four” became quite contentious, as it meant the Reds had to take an out every time they did not bat a woman in the spot. The Reds howled when Jeffrey “Cicero” Lehmann pointed out that they had tried to skip an automatic out at the top of an inning.

But the wrinkle in rules certainly added a twist to gameplay. The Crimson Tide quickly discovered that, with two outs and an automatic out coming next in the order, they had little to lose by sending all of their base runners home. Third baseman Mike “Bones” Bolinder was not amused. When an overthrow sent one of the Red rovers one too many bases, Bolinder ran as if he caught a bat thief, faster than he’s run in years, to tag the damn kid before he got home.

The Daddies did not get the game firmly in control until the third inning. It started with a Pew parade of singles and doubles, with Jeremy “Tender” Barr and Kat “But not Zambon” Matsa leading the way. The Daddies scored with 12 of their first 13 batters. Only the manager, Richard “Don’t Fuck Up” Auxier, fucked up with an out. (He did manage, however, to score twice on multibase hits in separate innings).

Sam “Domer” Derheimer spread the icing on the cake with a three-run homer to deep center. The David “Pocket Square” Becker protégé went crazy as he rounded third. Red-faced and beating his chest, he yelled, “That better get me in the fucking write-up!” Despite a very similar episode by his master, the padawan insisted he only meant to ironically mock Richard. Which is cool.

When the Daddies finally finished their onslaught, the sun was low in the sky. The Reds relitigated the not-enough-girls rules and still could not quite catch the Daddies. The Pew Patrol was revved up, making smart plays in the field and enjoying the sweet smell of victory at long last.

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DADDIES GET TORCHED BY ONE-HITTERS

CHANTING CLOVE SMOKERS NIP DADDIES’ HOPES IN THE BUD

THE CAPITAL HEMP BATTING CAGES — They say history is written by the winners. If that were true, you would not be reading this today. The annoying thing about losing a softball game 31-12 is that no blown foul call, no loudmouth opponent, no secret stash of chemicals can really explain it away.

The fact is Pew’s Your Daddy lost. They lost by a lot. And by accumulating far more errors than hits, they managed to lose by such staggering sums in just five innings.

That the defeat came at the hands of the One Hitters (aka “Our biggest rivals” and the only other CSL team dorky enough to tweet) just made the pain that much more unbearable.

The game was lost in the vast expanse of downward sloping hill that lies beyond the bases of the Daddies’ permitted field, which some people generously call “the outfield.”

A familiar pattern emerged that accounted for most of the desolation. When a One Hitter would come up to the plate, he or she would typically sit on about five or six pitches before opening their eyes. A couple more throws would sail over home (somewhere between the numbers and the knees), before the batter would wind up until his thumbs touched his ears. Then he would dig deep with all his might toward the incoming throw. At that point, the ball would gently glide by at waist level.

The Daddies fielders got so bored by this charade that they started studying the threading on their gloves, the patterns of distant bird song or the inane conversations of tourists — anything to keep them from falling asleep. Then, suddenly, the batter would jack a solid hit on a garbage pitch.

At first, an unsuspecting Daddies fielder would botch the catch. Then a second would also mishandle the play. And the third… Haha. There was never a third! The two fielders would stare blankly at each other for a few minutes, waiting for a third fielder to rescue them, before realizing that the last base runner was dangerously exposed near first or second or third base. After at least one overthrow, the next One Hitter came to the plate and the process started again.

An hour or so later, the Daddies would come up to bat. However, being at home, they in no way adapted to the field conditions beyond second base. And they certainly did not wait for pitches. Quite the opposite, in fact.

Sadly, half of the Daddies runs came from just three heroic batters: Alec “Hitchhiker” Tyson, Jeffrey “The Shark” Lehmann and Ivan “Salt N Pepa” Sciupac. Tyson and Lehmann both opened up the game with triples; Tyson later scored a home run, and Sciupac followed suit. Richard “Bitter” Auxier, who told everyone how he got a home run in the Daddies previous embarrassment of a game against the Microsoft Bada Bings, demonstrated why he thought it was such a big deal. He did nothing of the sort against the One Hitters. As usual, he was happy just getting to second a couple times.

But the real humdinger was the base running of Mike “Bones” Bolinder. The hardened veteran was dismayed to discover that, due to his tardy arrival, he was relegated to the SECOND PAGE of the batting order. For a man whose nickname (err, superior batting skills) practically cemented his place in the top of the order as the verb between Nick and Elizabeth, being the lead-off to the lead-off was nonsensical. Who ever heard of “Julia, Bones, Molly” anyway? It doesn’t make any sense! “This team,” Bones fumed, “is not Virginia-friendly.” As if it ever was.

Bones tried to make the most of what would prove — possibly as a result of his own actions — to be his only plate appearance. The storied slugger, of course, got on base, but only with a single. He tried to stretch it out to a double but was quickly recalled because — and this is a major plot point, folks — Kat “Roadkill” Zambon had safely arrived at second and wasn’t planning on going for more.

So tension filled the air when, with two outs in the inning, Molly “Know All” Rohal stepped up to the plate. She, of course, acquitted herself well. Her solid single would keep the Daddies’ rally, however improbable, alive for the top of the order.

That’s not, however, how Bones saw it. Despite the frantic warnings of third-base coach Sam “Domer” Derheimer, Bones tried to stretch Rohal’s single-base hit into a two-base ticket for him. Unfortunately, Bones was the only one who got this memo. Bones did, in fact, triumphantly beat the throw to third. But no one, least of all Zambon, expected him to be there. The Stoner tagged Zambon, and the inning was over.

Not that it mattered to anything but morale. The sun could not set quickly enough. Even several pitchers of Froggy Bottom Lager could not salve these wounds.

GAME NOTES: Rookie Brett “Not Frank” Dickstein nearly started a fight with the One Hitters when the called a clearly foul ball fair, which only padded their astronomical lead… The Smokers loved Dickstein the most during the next inning when he collided with the catcher in a play at the plate… Elizabeth “E-Pod” Podrebarac has been promising a home run for nearly a year, so expect one next week against the Censeo Reds.

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DADDIES NOTCH BIGGEST VICTORY YET

SCIUPAC GIVES ‘SOFTBALL DIAMOND’ A WHOLE NEW MEANING

ON THE BANKS OF THE POTOMAC — You gotta give Ivan “Gray Beard” Sciupac credit. He knows how to make everyone forget about a loss. The plucky shortstop had pored over the numbers again and again. He didn’t like how they added up.

“How do the Daddies,” he asked himself, “not have a winning record?”

Page after page of his Google spreadsheet just reaffirmed the basic arithmetic, an embarrassing, if not devastating, development. If word got out, he fretted, the rest of the Congressional Softball League would cease to tremble when they saw the Script Daddies logo. The first write-up in eons would trumpet the sad news of a defeat to a team from the most famous strip club in Redmond.

But being an old newsman himself, Sciupac had a trick or two up his sleeve. Or at least his running shorts. He knew one sure way to make everyone forget about a big news story is to create an even bigger one. And nothing, we found out just a week before, gets tongues wagging like a wedding.

So, on his morning run Saturday morning, Sciupac decided that there was nothing in life quite as cool as his Daddies teammates. Well, actually, just one teammate in particular. The girl in the ponytail playing second base who yelled at him for practically running her over in the first game they played together. The one who chatted with him on the stoop of Froggy Bottom during those hour-long “cigarette breaks.” The one who blogged with him, ran with him, cooked Peaster dinner with him.

Under bright blue skies on the banks of the Potomac, Ivan Sciupac got down on one knee and proposed to Elizabeth Podrebarac. She emphatically agreed.

(That may be the most sincere paragraph to ever appear in a Daddies write-up. Savor it.)

Upon hearing the news, Captain Emily “Social Chair” Guskin set to work on the E-vites. Her fellow captain, Scott “Cluster” Clement, immediately called the season a success. Historians, too, acknowledged the momentous nature of the development. It is, of course, the first Daddies fling to lead to an engagement. It also may be the first ever to not end awkwardly.

That said, the Daddies are doomed to at least one season of conversations about floral arrangements, shower etiquette and crazy-ass in-laws. Fierce debates have already erupted over whether playing flip cup at a wedding reception will get you kicked out, or whether the reception will actually be at the Frog. Either way, Alec “Crazy Legs” Tyson says he plans to crash the wedding.

And yes, for at least the third time in as many years, the Daddies’ loss to Microsoft is lost to blogging oblivion. The Daddies somehow climbed back from a seven-run deficit to tie the Bada Bings and, had they kept the momentum, their story would have been preserved for time immemorial. Instead, all hell broke loose in one fateful inning and it was all the Church Chairs could do to keep the margin within single digits. The Daddies fell 20-13.

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DADDIES LEAVE NO ROOM FOR DOUBT IN 27-11 WIN AGAINST MARGIN OF TERROR

BOP BA, BOP BA, THIS IS THE SOUND OF PUMMELING

WORST. FIELD. EVER. (WELL, IF IT WASN’T FOR THE VIEW) — A crew of killjoy cops and the botched play of a tenderfoot first baseman could not prevent Pew’s Your Daddy from opening the 2010 softball season with a breathtaking 27-11 win in just four and a half innings of play.

The disgruntled Daddies easily put away the Margin of Terror during the season opener, despite losing lead-off hitter Alex “Nanoman” Parlini on the team’s first at-bat. Parlini smacked a clean hit into the shallow right field and was running to beat the throw to the first when the first baseman stretched his foot clear across the base. The speedy Parlini sprinted past without seeing the misplaced foot. His momentum carried him some 20 feet as he tumbled and rolled past first.

Eventually, a pair of teammates helped Parlini return to the dug-out, while several other Daddies pondered whether it was too early to start the season’s first fight. Yes, as usual, the Daddies’ fighting words proved more bark than bite. But instead, the Daddies took out their anger with their bats and pummeled the bejeesus out of the Outliers’ misplaced sense of pride.

Lest you think this author is dabbling in hyperbole, the facts of the matter remain this: Six of the next seven batters would reach home by the end of the inning. Three of them — Richard “Last Stop” Auxier, Nick “The Stick” Wiseman and Kip “Big Country” Patrick — started their seasons with a home run.

Sadly, the anger couldn’t bring Parlini back from the sidelines. He tore apart a shirt to make a dressing, swiped an ice pack from an unsuspecting park ranger, took a swig of whiskey, clenched his teeth on a stick and hobbled off toward the horizon using his trusty nano-bat as a cane, just like the Delta Forces taught him during his recent, highly classified, trip to Cambodia.

While the Daddies were dispatching the progressive pollsters, a bomb squad was called in to investigate several suspicious packages in the Daddies’ dugout. On the nation’s front yard, where thousands of tourists tread every day and the most powerful people in the world pass through, just days after a smoke-induced panic spread from Times Square, a multijurisdictional law enforcement task force zeroed in on the very real threat before them. They arrived in two squad cars, a motorcycle AND a bike.

Sure enough, there before them were the unmistakable signs of mayhem: Red cups. Coozies. Aluminum cans. All those boxes of blue and silver.

Yes, kids, there was beer.

Gasp.

Notice the past tense. The cops not only poured out open beers but also confiscated unopened beer (and even a few ciders). It was so much fun, they fanned out across the pockmarked dusty fields to find more. First it was the opponent’s bench. And then the nearby kickballers. Then it was the power walkers and the grandparents walking dogs and the kids riding the merry-go-round. They took an hour to complete their daring sweeps, all the while leaving their squad cars near the Daddies.

(Somebody muttered, as the cops dumped the brews, “Don’t they have any of those, you know, ‘t-words’ to worry about?” A very astute observation. But in that case, judging from past write-ups, maybe it was our opponents they were after.*)

There really was no reason to provoke the Daddies to make them even madder. But, without beer, madder is exactly what they became. Jeffrey “The Hustler” Lehmann knocked in the first of two home runs on the day. Remarkably, he was one of four Daddies to end the day with two round-trippers, joined by Auxier, Wiseman and Patrick.

Still, the most memorable out-of-the-park shot came from Ivan “Gray Beard” Sciupac. Sciupac swung for the fences, but a plucky outfielder decided he wanted to be spared the humiliation of losing by YET ANOTHER RUN and tracked the ball over the warning track and straight into a park bench. The poorly placed bench caught him just below the waist (that’s what we call a euphemism), and the Margin man somersaulted over it. Sciupac came home.

The Daddies were far from perfect in the field, but their lead was never in doubt. (Had it been, the heroics of some of those unsung rookies, the newbies without nicknames, would probably be worth mentioning. But there’s a logic about these things: Hit a home run, hit a nine-year-old girl with a pitch, say something hilarious, say something stupid, save the day or write the write-ups, and you’ll probably make the cut. So there. Now you have something to shoot for during the season.)

The offensive onslaught from the Daddies lasted so long, they ran out of light to play in. The MT hitters came up empty-handed during the fifth, doing nothing to dent the 27-11 margin of terror for the Margin of Terror.

The Daddies celebrated the only way they know how: They drank a ton of beer. On the Mall. The same beer that sat, buried under bags and jackets, while the SWAT team scoured the field for every can they could get their hands on. Silly cops. Beer is for Daddies.

*Seriously, though, what do the Margin of Terror players call themselves? The Margins? The Terrors? The Motts? I’ve had to write three of these write-ups about this team and have come up with quite the array of nicknames, but I can’t think of one that actually sounds cool.

Transport FAIL.

Yeah, the Transport This folks just bailed. With THIS weather forecast.

PEW’S THE MASTER AGAINST THE BREWMASTERS, EVEN WHEN OUTNUMBERED

TOXIC BREW: A BIT OF BAD BLOOD BOILS IN BEWILDERING BLOW-OUT

THESE are the times that try human souls. The springtime slugger and the hail storm Daddy will, in this crisis of absences, shrink from the service of their team; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph.

And so it was that a lonely band of seven Pew’s Your Daddy players managed to run up a 5-0 lead against the amiable and fully staffed Brewmasters and later burned the Toasters for a 16-8 victory. The unlikely victory extended the Daddies’ winning streak to five.

It wasn’t exactly pretty, though.

When game time arrived on the sun-soaked Monumental Grounds the Daddies call home, the once-teeming ranks of Pewballers were embarrassingly thin. Despite a flurry of text messages, cell phone calls and loud cursing, the Daddies were hopelessly scattered across the globe. And, to make matters worse, two potential players were running late because they never switched to Daylight Savings Time.

Deeply afraid of being known as “That Team,” the skeleton crew in black and white saw little choice but to step up to the plate. They offered the Brewmaster’s the home team’s normal prerogative of last ups with the hopes that the two stragglers would find the Washington Monument before the Daddies had to take the field.

That plan failed. Three of the Daddies’ top four batters got out. The bright side was that the Daddies went through more than half the batting order. But the very dark side for the Vader Wearers was that they would now have to defend against the Brewmasters’ best hitters while leaving gaps in the field big enough that not even Alec “Crazy Legs” Tyson could cover them.

On top of that, many of the Daddies were playing out of position. Manager Richard “Last Stop” Auxier gave up his third base post to play in the outfield, alongside Tyson and Melissa “Mambo” Monbouquette, normally a catcher. Dan “El Capitan” Vock left the mound for first base, while lefty Danny “Wedge” Dougherty pitched the entire game. Elizabeth “E-Pod” Podrebarac and Ivan “Gray Beard” Sciupac rounded out the staff, playing second and third/short, respectively.

Mercifully, the Brewmasters missed the gaps and the Daddies preserved the 0-0 tie going into the second. The once-cheerful Brewers grew agitated in the dugout. The teeth-gnashing had only begun.

Vock started the inning for the Daddies with his first multibase hit of the year, reaching second. Monbouquette grounded out to first and Vock belatedly reached third with an awkward slide. But a botched throw made the effort moot and Vock, with strong encouragement from base coach Auxier, quickly got up and scored the Daddies’ first run. Yes, somehow, the seven-person crew was now winning.

Dougherty and Tyson added to the total when Podrebarac hit a triple, also her biggest hit of the season. She crossed the plate on a sacrifice fly from Sciupac. Auxier, who reached on a single, made it five when Vock, on his second at-bat of the inning, inexplicably hit a triple.

The good news kept on coming. As the Daddies were grabbing their gear to take the field, Zach “Zack Markovitz” Markovits and Annie “No Joke” Cloke finally finished their grueling journey from Chinatown to the Mall. Their addition meant the Daddies were only one short of a full squad of 10, meaning the only gap was extra space in the outfield.

The Daddies held solid. They didn’t allow a single run until the fourth inning. And, in the meantime, they were racking up the stats with four more runs in the third, including a home run (or triple???) from Sciupac.

If ever doubt poisoned the minds of the Pewsters, it probably came in the fourth inning. The Daddies went four up, three down and left Monbouquette stranded. Then the Brewmasters started hitting like a team that hadn’t lost in a month, putting four on the scoreboard.

The doubt, if ever there was one, vanished in the sixth. That’s when Pew’s Your Daddy tacked on six more insurance runs, including a round-tripper from Auxier. The rowdy skipper hit the long ball an inning after Tyson, his cubicle competitor, also went for a lap.

With the game safely in hand, the Daddies set off to make enemies.

Never mind that the Brewmasters humored the rag-tag group for nearly half an hour of extra batting practice. Never mind that the score was scorn enough. Never mind karma.

Nope. Enter Jeannette from the Block, the Daddies’ Super Fan who spends most of her time taunting Pew sluggers and reminding them not to shame their mothers. This time, she also directed her New York attitude at the opponents, reportedly using words that would shame her mother.

So when an honest disagreement surfaced, the Brewmasters were rather disagreeable. Somehow the Masters were an inning behind in their scorebook, and when the Daddies announced it was the bottom of the seventh — the last chance for the Hopped Up Hitters to eke out a comeback — the visitors could scarcely believe it.

A comparison of the scorebooks ensued*. The Daddies’ version, while generally well-maintained by Monbouquette, omitted several at-bats by the scorekeeper and captain because there was no back-up scorekeeper. Also, the book happened to be soaking wet with beer. But it did clearly show 21 outs, putting the game in the bottom of the seventh. The Brewmasters’ version of a scorebook appeared to be done in ball-point pen on the back of a piece of scrap paper, and even the scorekeeper admitted it was done “kinda half-assed by three different people.” The Brewmasters proposed another inning, just in case. The Daddies, who had all played the entire game, declined.

With much consternation and grumbling, the Brewmasters finally relented. With one out left, their hitter smacked a line drive that the Daddies easily caught. But the Brewers’ runner on third jumped the gun and headed for home. Before he got back to third, Auxier tagged him out. Thus, the game ended on a double play, and not a particularly graceful one at that.

Now, the Daddies have had lapses of sportsmanship on occasion. And they’ve suffered some ridiculous defeats (see the McNamee Clients, aka Balco Bombers, now the league’s top team). But they have never left the field without a post-game line-up of high fives. The Brewmasters were not in much of a conciliatory mood, though, and only when the whole Daddies team walked in single file to their sideline did the long-standing tradition occur.

So much for glory.

* League rules say the home team’s scorebook controls. But league rules say a lot of things that don’t ever happen on the Mall.

Seven MVPs for Daddies’ short-handed effort to beat Brewmasters 16-8

The once-teeming Daddies dugout was empty the entire game last night, as the Daddies started short-handed (and miraculously avoided a forfeit) by playing seven players, even after delaying the start of the game until 7 p.m. We even gave up our last-ups rights as the home team to try to hold out for more fielders.

And yet, after scoring nothing in the first inning, the skeleton crew managed to go up 5-0 in the second inning before reinforcements arrived for the bottom half. Your heroes, in no particular order, are:

Alec Tyson

Richard Auxier

Elizabeth Podrebarac

Ivan Sciupac

Dan Vock

Danny Dougherty

Melissa Monbouquette

Honorable mention goes to our esteemed reinforcements Zach Markovits and Annie Cloke, who ensured that we could at least play with a full infield.