In our quiet vista we call Claremont, it is not often that celebrities come to town, parading in with their rakish smiles and expensive drug habits. Now, I do not mean bona fide, "pa, get your camera!" sort of celebrities. Not like Gary Coleman or whoever it is that runs Taco Bell. But celebrities, nonetheless.

Yes, I’m talking about the Chapman Panthers, currently ranked sixth in the nation and third last year in the College World Series.

Now, with Goliaths of this repute, you expect quite an assembly of ballplayers, and not the sort you find in porn movies. I watched them closely, their every move.

What made them so good? Did we stand a chance in our first game back? I wonder where Carmen Sandiego is right now? Could they pull off this upset and give me the lead article?

To quote the great Keanu Reeves, the answer is "No way! No way!" Instead, you’re reading this in the inside cover with a black and white photo next to, I don’t know, probably a lacrosse article.

Now, the game was not necessarily a blowout. The Sagehens trailed by only three until the fifth inning and baseball is one of the purer sports where the game doesn’t end until the fat lady eats the last batter standing.

But Panther’s pitcher Mike Carey remained in relative control, scattering eight hits over seven innings, shutting out the Sagehens for the first five, and allowing no walks. In non-baseball lingo that is equivalent to sinking nine caps in a game to eleven while having my editor as his invalid partner.

On the other hand, the Panther’s offense chipped away at a committee of five Sagehen pitchers, never scoring in bulk but driving in at least one run in every inning but the second, fourth, and seventh.

Pomona-Pitzer made a serious run for it in the ninth against Garrett Shourds, Chapman’s very own version of Carlos Perez. Shouldering a disheartening 8-1 deficit into the ninth, Matt Rager ’02 led off with a first pitch home run, finishing the day 2-4. Then an error, a fortunate single off the first base bag by Robb Ruiz PI ’03, and a couple of hits later, Pomona cut the deficit to 8-4 with runners on first and second, and slugger Jose Cortez ’03 representing the tying run on deck.

However, as the once dominant Panther’s pitching began to show chinks in its armor, Luke Smude ’02 came to bat, looking for his third hit of the day, and grounded out to end the game.

"For our first game I thought we looked really strong as a team. Chapman is a strong program but we can play with anyone when we’re on our game," Smude said.

What did Chapman do so differently, you may ask? From what I noticed they seemed to scratch a bit more often and opted to have a midget for a catcher, but nothing in the extraordinary; they never scored more than two in an inning and stranded fourteen runners on base.

Simply put, the Panthers seemed to get a clutch hit when they needed it, an out whenever the Hens threatened, and a call whenever it mattered.

In the top of the fifth, for example, with two outs in a seemingly quiet inning, the Panthers then drew a balk, doubled in a run, were hit by a pitch, singled in another run, and then drew a walk to load the bases.

Fortunately, Hen pitcher Sonny Mott PI ’02 came in to stifle a dangerously building rally. However, the damage had already been done as the Panthers exited the inning with a now 5-0 lead.

Pomona, on the other hand, seemed to be always one hit short of a serious rally. In a similar situation in the bottom of the sixth, with two outs, Jose Cortez PI ’02 and Rager managed to string together a pair of singles. However, the short rally was cut shorter as Bobby Boeche ’03, who had doubled earlier, grounded out to end the inning.

Perhaps the most deceptive statistic would be in the hit count. Chapman only managed 13 hits to Pomona-Pitzer’s 12 but still won by four runs.

Now, I’m not a smart man, but I know that doesn’t quite add up. The answer lies in every other category: Chapman was walked five times to PP’s two. Chapman had two more steals (2-0), one less error (1-2), one more homerun (2-1), and two more paid off umpires who made a few questionable calls behind the plate and at first.

"When you play the number three team in the country, you have to play error-free baseball, and we didn’t do that," Coach Paul Svagdis stated.

Regardless, as the old adage goes, it is not if you win or lose but how you play the game. And apparently, they played the game much better than we did.

Does this make them better people than we are?

Probably, yes.

But the real question is: If there were to be a brawl, could our team kick their team’s ass?

And the answer to that is, probably yes. And that’s all ever matters, especially in a baseball game.