Artists Brushed Off

The Artists and Writers Softball Game didn’t set an attendance record at East Hampton’s Herrick Park Saturday afternoon, though the Scribes and Paletteers went at it with gusto as they always have — for 70 years, it is said — and, in the end, the Writers had the last word, winning 12-8.

Mike Lupica, one of The Game’s stalwarts, as have been Carl Bernstein, Ken Auletta, and Lori Singer, among others, crowed afterward that it marked the third straight year that the Writers had won, though you could also say it evened things up at 3-3 over the past six. 

At any rate, though the Writers ruled for years when The Game first began to be played as a fund-raiser in the late 1960s, the star of the Artists, who had become increasingly inclusive, welcoming to their number auto body repair shop owners, politicians, art collectors, deal makers, pro athletes, singers, actors, agents, comedians, architects, landscapers, and anyone with a good batting eye who could hand in a passable sketch, became ascendant.

Recently, the teams have annually battled toe to toe, to the extent, reportedly, that those who might lend The Game further cachet — and by so doing persuade more spectators to turn out — beg off when asked, not wanting to be thought inept. A pity if so, for The Game’s participants in the early days — at least in the case of the Artists — were often insouciant and zany, that dim memory being preserved each year when a turnip in the shape of a softball is offered up to be smashed, preferably by an obsessed Writers slugger. 

There were still plenty of pop-ups on Saturday, and some gaffes — by the ball-and-strike umpires, chiefly, one of whom was a former United States attorney general — but there was some embarrassingly competitive play too. 

A two-out, two-run opposite-field bloop in the top of the third inning by the Artists’ Chris Wragge drove in Singer, who’d singled, and Lonnie Quinn, who’d walked, evening the score at 3-3 — Andy Friedman, The New Yorker’s culture writer, and the game’s M.V.P.-to-be, having found the tennis courts with a three-run blast in the bottom of the first.

With Wragge on second, Eddie McCarthy, the Artists’ cleanup hitter, had a chance to gain the lead, but Michael Mukasey, the former U.S. attorney general, called him out on a head-high pitch, an extrajudicial opinion with which everyone who had eyes to see disagreed.

Big blows in the bottom half by David Baer, Friedman, and Rick Leventhal upped the Writers’ lead to 7-3. The Artists got two back in the top of the fourth, but the Writers effectively put the game away with three more in their fourth, Dan Pulick and Brett Mauser, by way of a cue shot that landed on the right-field line before bouncing into foul territory, driving in the runs.

Brian Pfund, who had shared the home run derby title earlier that afternoon, with 18 taters, smoked a run-scoring double to right-center in the fifth, bringing the Artists to within four, at 10-6. 

John Longmire, who had come on in relief for the Artists in the fourth, held the Writers scoreless in their fifth and sixth. Ed Hollander led off the Artists’ seventh with a triple, earning him an M.V.P. honorable mention for having slid in wearing short pants. 

Quinn then drove in Hollander for 10-7, and Peter Cestaro followed with a rope to center field, putting runners at first and second with no outs for McCarthy. Harry Javer, the Writers’ pitcher, retired the Artists’ cleanup hitter on a line drive to left, for the first out, after which, with Pfund up, the Writers went into a shift, the shortstop, Baer, hauling in Pfund’s subsequent high pop in shallow right, a defensive play that effectively ate the Artists’ dreams.

A sacrifice fly by Russell Blue, who had resorted to some blue language when Dan Rattiner called him out on strikes in the sixth, pulled the Artists to within 10-8 in the top of the eighth, but the Writers wrote finis with two more runs in their half. 

The quietus came in the top of the ninth when, with Quinn at second following a ground-rule double, Friedman snagged Cestaro’s drive to left-center for the second out, and threw to third, where Mike Pellman alertly caught Quinn, who’d overrun the bag, trying to get back in.