Dear Catfish Nation,
I can see the little gears turning in all of your heads now—"Why are we getting the write-up from Liz? This is highly irregular!" Well, friends, due to an unfortunate accident during the second game of the evening—more on that in a bit—Cap'n Batty is out of commission for the time being, so I volunteered to put together the write-up. Apologies in advance for my long-winded (but hopefully entertaining) commentary!
All right, folks. Let's rewind to Wednesday afternoon. We had some pretty nasty weather come through Cambridge around 3 p.m., and we weren't sure we'd get to play at all, but since the lightning cleared up by 4, the Commish left it up to the team captains to decide. We were already playing a mixed double-header to make up for the rained-out game two weeks ago, and since (a) both the Shadow Masks and the Whybunts were able to field enough players, (b) we couldn't really reschedule before the playoffs, and (c) we Fish aren't afraid of a little water, we decided to play!
As it turned out, the rain cleared up just as we made it to the Women's Softball Diamond for our match against the Shadow Masks, and after a brief delay to clear some puddles from the infield and the dugout (thanks to some of the Shadow Masks and our very own Tslammy Tsai), we got down to it. Despite our best efforts at drying up the infield, however, we were a bunch of slippery Fish out there—literally! It's hard to make plays when you can't get a grip on the ball because it's covered in mud or you wipe out the second you pivot to make a throw. The Shadow Masks, many of whom were wearing cleats, definitely had a leg up on us in that respect.
Still, we did our best! Matt "The Baffler" Abbate and Kate "Scaldwell" Elwell stayed cool, calm, and collected on the pitcher's mound and tried to stop those foul infield fly balls in their tracks whenever they could. Catcher Erin "Purple Haze" Hasley fielded their pitches with aplomb, painting the dugout red... with tissues saturated with the reddish mud that ended up all over her hands as a result, that is. Throws came like speeding bullets at "No Prob" Rob Carter and John "Tslammy" Tsai on first base, but they caught them like their gloves had magnets inside. "Leapin' Levi" Rubeck slipped and slid but mostly stayed on his feet while defending second base, a mean feat (no pun intended) indeed. The shortstop duo of Jon "Butters" Elwell and Chris "Bat 'o Fire" Eyer were so committed to getting those outs that they ended Game 1 absolutely covered in mud. John "The Battler" Abbate showed off his quick reflexes and made a superb running catch at third base. In the outfield, Rich "You're Not My Dad" Wladkowski, Judy "Cap'n Batty" Feldmann, Matt, Chris, and yours truly, Liz "Risky Lizness" Agresta (a moniker coined by Chris during Game 2 that I officially need on a T-shirt, stat!!) ran and jumped and tried to stop as many of those pesky outfield grounders as possible, but we were no match for the handful of Shadow Masks who could smash hits right over the fence—and there were a few! At the plate, meanwhile, Leapin' Leevs, Kate, and Rich batted singles, and John Tsai was robbed when his magnificent hit was caught by one of the Shadow Masks' outfielders.
We played valiantly through four of the five scheduled innings, at which point time ran out and we were summarily booted from the WSD by Roman Brushett, who all but stormed the dugout and sent us Fish scrambling for our belongings before we trekked over to Field 5A for a rematch against our best frenemies, the Whybunts (who also graciously offered to take our end-of-season team photo before the opening pitch—see below for pics).
We were a fierce fighting force of Fish in the field at the start of Game 2, hoping to avenge ourselves after a tough Game 1. We kept the Whybunts to a single run in the first inning thanks to Butters Elwell, whose glove seemed to have an almost gravitational force to it as he snapped up two outs in a row at shortstop. Taking that energy into the bottom of the first, we scored two runs. We were fired up as we went into the second inning, but not long after we headed back out onto the field, one of the Whybunts batted a double that came in real hot, blowing past shortstop and into short field, where it made contact with Judy's bare hand. OUCH. (Big thanks to Rich for accompanying her to MIT Medical to have it checked out.)
I think everyone was pretty rattled after that, but we did our best to keep calm and carry on for our captain! We managed to shuffle the field positions around to account for being down two players (thanks to John Tsai for helping with that), but the all-hands-on-deck nature of the game meant that Erin and I were doing the absolute bare minimum on clipboard duty, so forgive us the lack of detail in this section of the recap (not to mention the lateness of its arrival—I don't know the meaning of the word "punctual"). Some highlights: Rob hit a pop fly in the third inning that went almost completely vertical before sinking right into one of the Whybunts' gloves, prompting a few of us to yell "Robbed!!" in anguish, to which he responded wittily, "That's why they named me that!" Tslammy Tsai batted a single and a double, but due to some confusion about whether or not there was an overthrow at first—which would have allowed him to take second base—pinch runner Levi was called out before he could tag up again at first. (He was robbed!!) John Abbate batted a single as well, as did yours truly—but not before hauling you-know-what all the way to first base before my initial hit was ruled a foul. Between that and the outfielders having to constantly shift back and forth due to the Whybunts' abundance of left-handed batters, we Fish definitely got our cardio in on Wednesday!
(As an aside, from the time I played softball as a teenager I always thought I was a terrible batter, but this season has been a big confidence boost in that respect. I think all of us acquitted ourselves well at the plate this season, actually—everyone got at least one really good hit, and I think everyone made it on base at least once. It really helps when the pitches come in at a decent clip so we can get some momentum behind our swings!)
Due to our chaotic exit from the WSD after Game 1, we weren't able to shake hands with or do our customary cheer for the Shadow Masks, so here's one I came up with just now: "Shadow Masks! Shadow Masks! You took the Catfish to task!" We sent the Whybunts off for the final time this season with "Whybunts! Whybunts! Goodbye AliKat-Bunts!" in honor of our Muddy buddy Alison, who's heading off to a new job in Seattle (!) in a couple weeks. We'll miss seeing her smiling face on the playing field and at our postgame hangouts at the Muddy Charles Pub.
A big thanks to our cheering section for brightening our spirits despite the gloomy weather and Judy ending up on the DL—faithful Fish fanatic Robley "The Rookie" Elwell, who had a grand old time playing in the mud by Field 5A, as well as Emily "Economics Editor Extraordinaire" Taber and her kiddos, a couple of junior Catfish in the making: Luca "The Legend" and "Starfish Arms" Amelia!
Well, sports fans… thus ends another storied MIT Press Catfish season. We didn't quite make it to the playoffs, but we came darn close: 4–6, our best showing in recent years (from what I've been told). And although the regular season may be over, we still have one game yet to play—please join us at 1:30 p.m. on Saturday, August 10, at Danehy Park in Cambridge for our annual face-off against the Harvard University Press team at the 2019 Easter Seals charity game!
Signing off,
Liz
Team photo! (minus a few folks who couldn't make it this week—we missed you!!)
Our cheering squad in the Women's Softball Diamond dugout during Game 1:
As you can see, Robley was living his best life during Game 2:
Judy's busted hand :(
