The Law League softball season is winding down like a tired old clock. In a surprise finish, Akerman Senterfitt heads into the playoffs as the top seed after recovering from an opening day shellacking at the hands of Better Tritt by running the table for the rest of the season.
Better Tritt locked up the second seed, and would have had the first seed except for the fact that it failed to show up for a game. The seeding committee counted the failure to show as two losses, in part because not showing up for a game is poor form, and in part because of its collective insolence.
Yes. There were other teams in the league and this would be a good place to put the seedings, but to you, the reader, it would just filter through your brain as “blah-blah-blah. Yadda-Yadda-Yadda.”
Consequently, we have decided to use this space as a Law League Intelligence Quotient Test. It’s a challenge to the readers of this column to find out if you are Law League Mensa material, or of Vince Gallagher-like ignorance of the goings-on of a league that creates more intrigue than Oliver Stone’s three-hour take on the Kennedy assassination.
So, no peeking at past columns and sharpen those No. 2’s. (And for those two people who actually care about the seedings, the seeding of the team is next to the team name throughout this column. If your team is not mentioned, it’s because they were not interesting enough to write about during the season)
1. Akerman Senterfitt’s Alan Pickert’s excuse for getting thrown out at second base on a sharp hit that was legitimately a triple for Rick Sichta was:
A) “Hey, that ball (which was 14 feet in the air) nearly took my head off. I was too shaken to run.”
B) “I was waiting for the run sign from David Otero, but could not see him coaching third base because he was obstructed by the pitcher’s mound.”
C) “I’m a marathon runner. The cardinal rule is never run without appropriately stretching.”
2. Hit & Run (third-seed) Skipper Scott Schildberg is still searching for one baseball shoe that he lost in the dugout. Schildberg took his shoe off in the dugout because:
A) The burning and itching of athlete’s foot.
B) He was busy trying to edge out Cinderella for the glass slipper.
C) He was looking for takers to sand down his bunions. That guy has some serious “hammer-time” on his feet from wearing pumps.
3. While on the theme of losing things, Akerman skipper David Otero has sent out an APB for a missing “Fat Boy.” The “Fat Boy” Otero is looking for is:
A) A grossly illegal bat that allows him to actually hit the ball out of the infield.
B) It’s actually “Phat Boy.” Otero has gone hip in a last ditch attempt to convert his image to “hip-hop” and tour with Eminem before he turns 40.
C) It’s the name of the new Akerman bat boy, who has been missing since receiving a tongue lashing from Mike Marino.
4. Strikebreakers/Hit & Run pitcher Jim Purcell has been lost for the season because of a torn hamstring. Purcell shredded the “hammy” while:
A) Filing it down with a handy butter knife upon learning that Scott Schildberg wanted to “hang out” with him after games.
B) Trying to sit down Indian style on the pitcher’s mound in protest when he thought the umps were “squeezing” him.
C) Trying to leg out an “outfield” hit before being thrown out at first base.
5. Rogers Towers outfielder Troy Smith does not wear a baseball cap during games because:
A) As Troy says: “The ladies, they like the hair very much.”
B) It has been at the cleaners getting out the Brylcream stains.
C) He can no longer use the hat ever since he had it autographed by the Hooter’s calendar girls.
6. Harrell & Johnson’s game-by-game results can be found:
A) On the Harrell & Johnson website, on a link right next to the counter where you find out how many people have been to visit their site, and just above H&J’s link to the new line of aerobics videos for persons with permanent partial disabilities.
B) Silly. You know where to find it. It’s on the back of the phone book.
C) In English and Spanish if you call their new 900 number designed to create a new revenue stream to pay for the new “green giant” building
7. The most outrageous moment in the season occurred when:
A) Strikebreakers outfielder Tysen Duva officially changed his name to “Tysen Diva” after adopting the dress code of pitcher “Nuke” LaLoosh from the movie “Bull Durham.”
B) When Holland & Knight’s Patricia Sher showed up at a game in an “elect Bill McBride” T-shirt and fishnet stockings, only to be told by Brendan Rager that her T-shirt is misspelled. “Pat, It’s Bake McBride (former St. Louis Cardinals outfielder) for governor, not Bill. Anyone from St. Louis would know that.”
C) Bray & Singletary committed an act of protest when it learned the American Heart Association put up razor wire to keep law league beer drinkers out of their parking lot by smoking a carton of Lucky Strikes and dumping the spent “butts” on the Heart Association’s entryway.
8. Which of the following statements is true regarding these particular law league players/teams:
A) Akerman’s Pete Larsen’s dry-spell on the dating scene has been longer than Akerman‘s win streak.
B) The Navy JAG team finished last in the standings when they extended the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy to reporting the scores of their games.
C) Bedell’s Don Mairs walked 57 consecutive batters in one game because he had a Shirley McLaine-like flashback to a previous life as a world-class Bocci Ball player from Italy.
9. Sherri Worman abused her power as a journalist when she dishragged Robert Devine in her recent YLS president’s column because:
A) Troy Smith, in an effort to get back at Devine, talked her into it with copious amounts of booze and his autographed Hooter’s hat.
B) She did not want to “out” friend Arnold Tritt with his story about his first day in the courthouse, so she “changed the name to Devine to protect the innocent.”
C) She has had a secret crush on the “dreamy” Devine ever since he “dogged her out” in a game of “quarters” at a 1997 YLS Happy Hour so bad that she “shouted at her shoes.”
If you are a seasoned reader of this column, we are sure you did well. Or, if you followed the Dan Bean Florida Bar Exam approach and simply marked “C”, you would have gotten all of the answers correct. Next month, tune in for more truths, half-truths and outright lies about the softball playoffs as we use this column as our vehicle to get back at anyone that dares to challenge us. Right, Sherri?