Softballing

BATTER up! The Sag Harbor softball league warmed up for its 1985 season, starting this month, with its annual awards dinner at Father Jake's. The ultimate Hamptons group activity, the weekly Sag Harbor game is a ten-year tradition for

sixty-odd writers, artists, and assorted other pros and nonpros. A disproportionate number seem to be Time Inc. employees. The players maintain an honor code of silence about the game, because each time they get publicity, too many people show up. Regulars, from (Ken) Auletta to (Mort) Zuckerman, gathered at Palatine, the Man-

hattan restaurant owned by priest Peter Jacobs (a.k.a. Father Jake), for a forty-dollar meal of wine, wine, wine, and chicken and rice in ' 'nondenominational sauce." The guest of honor, baseball commissioner Peter Uebberoth, displayed good sportsmanship by showing up to present a signed World Series game ball to "commission-

er" Wilfrid Sheed, even though most of the evening's in-jokes were lost on him. Toastmaster (and Time writer) John Leo wrote the usual ribald citations for longtime players: a newly svelte Carl Bernstein received the state seal of New Jersey "for spending more time in Elizabeth this year than anyone else. " You figure it out.

Cyndi Stivers