Playing against type, the Writers pretty much went by the book in the 75th Artists and Writers Softball Game at East Hampton’s Herrick Park Saturday as the Artists, who used to cite the big picture whenever asked about their annual defeats in the past, brushed the Scribes off 15-9, thus extending their lead to 18-15-1 in the Clinton era, and to 6-4 in the past decade.
In the old days, it was said, the Writers were the fire-breathing loners, and the Artists were the lighthearted bons vivants, treating triumph and disaster as the impostors they are, but since the late 1980s, the Paletteers have not only hung with the Writers, they have at times rolled over them, as they did in the latest edition of the Game played out before a large crowd.
Not only was the Artists-Writers’ crowd large, but so, said Ronnette Riley, was the Artists’ roster, which totaled a record-breaking 35, all but three of whom, “a wake surfer, a skimboarder, and a wingsuit flier,” she played. “It was like herding cats,” the Artists’ manager said afterward. “I’ve never not had a lineup ready to go before gametime.”
The “away” team, the Paletteers made a splash from the get-go, scoring four runs on six hits in the top of the first inning. And this with a lineup from which former stalwarts such as Brian Pfund, John Longmire, Chris Wragge, and Peter Cestaro were missing.
Likewise, notable Writer absentees Saturday included Harry Javer, David Baer, Richard Wiese, and Brett Shevack, the Writers’ veteran third baseman.
Shevack told a fellow spectator that he had come up with the idea that both rosters be limited this year to actual writers and artists, a radical proposal to which Riley and the Writers’ managers, Ken Auletta and Mike Lupica, signed on. As to which team first crossed the line, that is debatable.
Leif Hope, the Game’s 94-year-old impresario, has said the Writers did it when they played “two lawyers from California who wrote briefs” in the early 1970s. The late John Leo, who used to manage the Writers, once said of Hope’s lineup, “I guess anyone who’s not a writer is an artist.”
Stephen Perrine, a best-selling author and AARP magazine’s executive editor, got the turnip, lobbed his way by the Artists’ starting pitcher, Walter Bernard, as Perrine led off the bottom of the fourth. Lupica, who used to be a frequent recipient of the turnip, announced his retirement before the game began. Last year’s super-surrealistic 19-18 win, in which the Writers tallied 17 runs in the top of the ninth to win it, was, he said at the time, “a helluva note to go out on.”
It was almost déjà vu all over again this year, but Riley spiked a Writers’ rally in the eighth — after they’d pulled to within 12-9 and had loaded the bases with two outs — by asserting that the Scribes, who had begun freelancing a bit, were “batting a man for a woman.”
Auletta obligingly brought in a woman, who grounded into an inning-ending force at third.
The Artists put the finishing touches on, in the form of three more runs, in the top of the ninth, after which Joe Sopiak, who had relieved Bernard in the sixth, set the Writers’ third, fourth, and fifth hitters down in order, on a flyout to left and two popups to short, to write finis.
Bridget Evans, a graphic designer who drove in a run and made two nifty catches in the outfield, was named the Game’s most valuable player, Riley said.
