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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