Leif Hope has always painted his Artists team as devil-may-care when it comes to winning and losing and the Writers as self-loathing loners obsessed with winning, and so, in the end, at the 74th meeting of the rivals at East Hampton’s Herrick Park Saturday afternoon, all went according to form as the Writers, who had trailed 18-2 — yes, 18-2 — entering the bottom of the ninth inning, wound up winning in storybook fashion 19-18.
“Who wants to win by 15 or 16 runs?” Tom Clohessy, the elder statesman in the Artists’ lineup, said afterward at a gathering of both teams at the Dopo La Spiaggia restaurant on Race Lane. “We could have won if I’d pitched at the end, but the Game is about the fans and the kids.”
Parker Calvert, one of the Artists’ younger players, at 33, who cited Kipling’s advice that we should treat triumph and disaster as the imposters they are, was equally even-keel. The main thing, he said, was to have a good game, which everyone agreed this was. “I couldn’t have had a more fun day,” he said.
Ronnette Riley, the Artists’ manager, was not so sanguine. The Artists, she said, were bamboozled. “Number one, they started batting out of order in the second inning and went on from there, and when I made substitutions in the ninth, putting myself in at second base and David Blinken in as the pitcher, I thought their ninth, 10th, and 11th hitters were coming up, but, instead, Ken batted Mike, his son Alex, and David Baer, their heavy hitters, in those spots,” she said of Ken Auletta, the Writers’ co-manager, and Mike Lupica and his son Alex.
“If I’d known they’d do that, I never would have made the changes I did. When I made those substitutions — the Writers had been whining for the entire game — I thought, ‘We’ll see if they can’t score a couple of runs.’ . . . Well, it did make the game exciting.”
The younger and stronger Artists were the pregame favorite, and, indeed, they were overwhelmingly superior from the get-go. In the top of the fifth, the Writers intentionally walked Brian Pfund, a former semipro baseball player from Montauk, to load the bases for Eddie McCarthy, a former Artists M.V.P., who promptly hit a grand slam over the left-field fence for an unheard-of 11-1 Artists’ lead.
Still worse was to come as, in the top of the sixth, Pfund lofted a three-run homer over the right-field fence, a short porch for him, extending the seemingly insurmountable lead to 14-1. After the Writers got one back via a sacrifice fly by Baer, the sure-fielding shortstop, the Paletteers tacked on four more in the eighth as Robert Tuchman and Pfund, with another three-run homer, got the r.b.i.s.
And now to the super-surrealistic ninth, unmatched in Major League Baseball history — the Detroit Tigers’ 10-run ninth-inning comeback versus the Milwaukee Brewers on April 5, 1901, still standing as the record.
“Fifteen to go!” Carl Bernstein called out after Mike Lupica, whose 40th Artists-Writers Game this was — and whose son Alex had singled behind him — came around from second base to score the Writers’ third run on Baer’s hot shot between third and short.
Mosheh Oinounou, a “content producer,” authored two more runs with a base hit, Dan Pulick reached first base safely on an error, and Jonathan Lemire drove in Oinounou from second with the Writers’ sixth run. Nicholas Dawidoff singled, loading the bases for Harry Javer, who’d been pitching in relief of Brett Shevack, the Writers’ starter. David Blinken, who had come on in relief of John Longmire, walked Javer, resulting in another run and closing the gap to 18-7.
That brought up Paul Winum with the bases loaded and still nobody out. Winum’s full-count single drove in another run, and a walk to Josh Franklin, the Jewish Center of the Hamptons’ rabbi — about whom more later — made it 18-9. Shevack, a 72-year-old who used to play third base with the grace of Graig Nettles, then emptied the bases with a three-run opposite-field triple to right, bringing up Mike Lupica again, the Writers having batted around, and having scored 10 runs without making an out.
After Lupica drew a walk from Blinken, the Artists brought in another pitcher, Matthew Montemaro, who gave up an r.b.i. single to Alex Lupica that scored Shevack from third. Baer, the next at bat, hung his head after looping a fly into shallow right-center, but, happily for him, it landed unclaimed, and resulted in yet another run. It was 18-14 Artists, and still there were no outs. Two flyouts followed, and then came the play of the game. Riley, the Artists’ manager and scorekeeper, who had come in to play second base after Lupica had complained the Artists weren’t subbing enough, appeared to throw late to the shortstop, Peter Cestaro, in trying to force Lemire as Alex Lupica was coming around with the Writers’ 15th run.
Lemire, when the dust had cleared, was called out, however, by the first-base umpire, Andy Moss, a call that Riley, who thought she had him, and other players, on both sides, agreed later would have ended the game. But, following a big to-do, the umpire on the mound, Jeremy Dickstein, overruled Moss. Lemire, he said, had been safe. And so the agon continued.
Dawidoff subsequently drove in the Writers’ 16th run, and a walk to Javer loaded the bases for Winum. Riley came up with the grounder he hit to her, but her throw was too late for the force at second as the Writers’ 17th run crossed the plate.
With two outs and the bases still loaded, Franklin strode to the plate and proceeded to smite Montemaro’s second offering deep, deep to left. It was the shot heard 'round the Reutershan Parking Lot, a ground-rule double that ended what inarguably had been the most bizarre Artists-Writers Game ever played, and sent the Writers, who reportedly had thought of calling it quits in the eighth, home 19-18 winners.
Afterward, at Dopo La Spiaggia, Leif Hope, the Game’s 93-year-old impresario, called down a plague on both houses: upon the Artists for having “played a terrible game,” and upon the Writers for having wanted to throw in the towel.
Mike Lupica said as he left the party that if this were to be his swan song, it would be “a helluva note to go out on.”