In what possibly was the longest Artists and Writers Softball Game ever played, the Artists wound up prevailing 11-10 in the bottom of the 12th inning at East Hampton Village’s Herrick Park Saturday, a game that, while long, had its moments and held its sizable audience’s attention from the get-go.
The Game’s longtime impresario, Leif Hope, age 95, was there, as were Katie Couric, Eric Fischl, Carl Bernstein, and John Franco, a former pitcher for the Mets who went all the way on the mound for the Writers, and who, with a two-out double to the right-field fence in the top of the 12th, put his team in position to take the lead, only to be followed by a popup that Parker Calvert, the Artists’ third baseman, gathered in.
Things went the Writers’ way in the early going. By the end of the first inning, they led 6-2, thanks in part to a three-run home run by Teddy Jones, their number-three hitter, who drove in Alex Lupica and Jonathan Lemire ahead of him after each of them had singled.
The Writers tacked on another run in the top of the second thanks to a bloop r.b.i. single by Jones that fell unclaimed in center field. Walter Bernard, who had relieved the Artists’ starter, Fischl, in the top of the third, held the Writers scoreless in their third, fourth, and fifth at-bats, after which, in the bottom of the fifth, the Paletteers put two runs across, adding four more in the bottom of the seventh, thanks largely to two-out r.b.i.s by Ed Hollander and Calvert, to take the lead for the first time that afternoon, at 8-7.
Ronnette Riley, the Artists’ manager, brought in Joe Sopiak, the Artists’ Mariano Rivera, to pitch to the Writers in the top of the eighth, but the Scribes touched him for three runs, taking the lead again, at 10-8.
The Artists tied the score in their half, Jonathan Schenk and Gregory Lauritano getting the r.b.i.s, and so it stood through the next three tense innings.
In the top of the 12th, Lemire, who batted second in the Writers’ lineup, grounded out short-to-first, after which Jones lofted a high fly over third that Calvert, after backpedaling somewhat unsteadily, managed to haul in. Franco’s double to the right-field fence followed, but another pop to Parker ended the frame, and, as it turned out, wrote finis for the Writers.
Ron Noy flied out to Jones in center to lead off the Artists’ 12th, and Michael Dougherty popped out to second, but then Calvert, who singled, went all the way to third on Peter Cestaro’s subsequent blooper, and, with arms joyfully upraised, crossed the plate with the winning run when Andrei Lloyd, who was dubbed the Game’s most valuable player as a result, drilled a Franco offering into the outfield.
Calvert, who waxed philosophical two years ago following the Writers’ super-surrealistic 17-run comeback in the bottom of the ninth that treated them to a storybook 19-18 victory, confessed during the postgame celebrating that winning was, indeed, fun.
Thus the Artists, while still way behind in games that have been contested since 1948, improved to 19-15-1 in the Clinton era. The former president, who has often served as an umpire, did not show this year, nor was a turnip offered up to an unsuspecting batter.
