2006 P&C Season Preview, Part 1

I’ve been receiving grief from some of you for teasing you for an entire week, so here is part one of the highly anticipated two part Pitchers and Catchers (P&C) season preview. Today I will highlight the P&C squad and our illustrious history.

In order to provide insight on P&C’s 2006 outlook, we must first look back to the past. P&C formed in the spring of 2003 as a collection of actuaries at work looking to dominate yet another company IM sport. The actuaries were looking for a new challenge after conquering basketball, men’s softball (before the league folded), and volleyball (of course, I was not part of any of those championship teams). Co-ed softball seemed to be a perfect fit. A group of us gave co-ed softball a shot, but we quickly realized that this league was going to be no pushover. After struggling through the first half of the regular season, we slowly found some rhythm and finished with an 8-6 record, placing us 7th out of 15 teams. However, we sent some major shockwaves through the league with our quarterfinal upset of the #2 seed despite missing two of our top girls (Tricky and Hawkeye) thanks to the greatest defensive play in P&C history. The #2 seed, Rio Deals (now defunct), were trailing by 1 run in the bottom of the 7th (last) inning with runners on 1st and 3rd. The girl up to bat hit a ground ball to PhillyPhanatic (SS), who tagged 2nd. There was no time to turn a double play, and the girl on 3rd hesitated briefly before running home. PhillyPhanatic threw the ball home to RoopDogg (P), who was covering home plate. However, the throw was over RoopDogg’s head. However, thanks to Roop’s 3.9 inch vertical leap, he was able to grab the ball, reach back and tag the runner just before the runner touched home plate, setting off a huge victory celebration. However, the magical playoff run ended in the semifinals in the same manner in which the season began, by getting blown out against league powerhouse Son of a Pitch (who will be referred to from this point on as ‘The Assholes’).

The 2004 P&C squad was ready to build from the momentum gained at the end of the 2003 season. Due to layoffs at the company and the fact that we sold a major division, the softball league shrank from 15 teams to 10 teams in 2004. Our squad added another solid girl to the team (Tricky’s twin sister), so we though that we would be a league force in ‘04. However, we lost RoopDogg, our biggest power hitter and best pitcher from 2003. We realized early in the season that we might be a really good team after falling in 9 innings to The Swarm, the 2003 league champion. We gained even more confidence after rolling off 6 blowout wins after that loss before losing in extra innings to The Assholes. We finally made our statement as a team to be reckoned with after a stunning come from behind victory over The Swarm that featured the greatest offensive play in P&C history. Trailing 5-3 in the seventh inning, we loaded the bases for G-Mac, who came through in the clutch with a grand slam, sparking a 7-5 victory. We entered the 2004 playoffs with a 12-2 record and the number one seed. However, after cruising into the semifinals with a 32-2 mercy killing of the #8 seed, we suffered a stunning 15-14 semi-final upset against the Beerbuddies thanks to a disastrous ten run 4th inning where our defense returned back to our 2003 form for one inning (and also because the other team was better that day).

The 2005 P&C team was ready to rebound from our surprise early exit from the 2004 playoffs. However, we would have to do it without G-Mac, who moved to Philadelphia. That left P&C without it’s biggest bat from 2004. Furthermore, we lost another aggressive base runner and solid fielder with G-Mac’s departure. However, we added UNICorn to the team in 2005, so we were able to recover. P&C is known as a good team in this league because of the play from our girls. Our guys are not power hitters, but with the exception of yours truly, we are able to turn singles into triples through aggressive base running. Since we returned our girls from the 2004 team, we still expected to have a strong season. Runs were going to be at more of a premium for our team in 2005, but our defense proved up to the task by only allowing 4.5 runs per game in 2005. An early-season win over The Swarm followed up by an impressive defensive showing in a 5-0 victory over the Beerbuddies started the season off on a solid note (yes, we actually shut out an opponent in a slow pitch softball game). We rolled through the next several games before losing back-to-back games late in the season against The Swarm and The Assholes. A 12-2 finish was good enough for the #2 seed in the playoffs. We once again started the playoffs on a strong note with a mercy killing of the #7 seed where we put our first 13 runners on base in the first inning before easing up and holding on to an 18-3 win. In the semi-finals against The Swarm, we put on a defensive clinic and took advantage of a team that had just lost their big power hitter to another company. The impressive 9-3 win gave us a lot of confidence for our best-of-three championship series against The Assholes, despite the fact that we had never beaten them before. Unfortunately, we dropped game one of the championship series to the 2004 champions 3-2 because we were outsmarted in what ultimately was a rare display of slow pitch ‘Small ball’. Three runs generated by sacrifice flies were enough to beat our dead bats and poor clutch hitting in game one. Although P&C brought more offense in game two, the defense had several lapses and The Assholes completed the series sweep with a 17-10 victory.

The 2006 P&C squad is looking a little shakier than the past couple teams. We lost Puddles, who was a fixture in center field and an extremely aggressive base runner. RytheRed was added to the team this year to fill in our gap in center field. We have added a couple other unknown/unproven guys, so our season might depend on how good these players turn out to be. We also had to go outside the actuarial population at work to find players this season since a second actuarial team started up in 2005 (The Swinging Bunts) and they have a monopoly on new talent these days. We’ll probably need a few games to figure out how all the pieces fit together, but as you’ll see in part 2, there are no early cupcakes on the schedule. The good news is that the girls, who are the reason our team is so good, are all back and ready for a title run. 2006 might be P&C's last hurrah as a league power, so hopefully we can make the most of it.

The goals for P&C in 2006 are clear:
#1) Have fun – after all, it’s just IM co-ed softball



#2) Beat The Assholes – I really hate that team, and it has nothing to do with the fact that they are better than us. Just wait for part two and you’ll know why…
#3) Win the league title – The 2006 squad might not be as strong as past teams, but we are still gunning for our first league title

In part two, I will break down some of the other noteworthy teams and highlight the 2006 season schedule.