The 2025 Artists & Writers Game Raises Record $90,000 as Writers Defeat Artists 9–6

The longest running annual fundraising event in the Hamptons – actually a softball game founded in 1947 – was held behind the Stop & Shop supermarket in East Hampton last Saturday afternoon in fair weather and with a goodly crowd.

A whopping $90,000 was raised, a record, for the Phoenix House, The Retreat, East End Hospice, and the Eleanor Whitmore Early Childhood Center. But the occasional nationally known celebrities who sometimes play here did not happen, although we did have over the loud speaker the names of Giuliani and then later Pollock, both of whom have played in this game as Rudolph and Jackson at different times. The voices turned out to be author Mary Giuliani and Ruth Pollock, an artist.

Instead, the game for the most part featured actual authors and painters with this year only a sprinkling of artists who, in the past lollygagged their way into the game in great numbers because their art happened to be as Presidents of the United States (Clinton) or athletes (Pele).

Nevertheless, the game was hotly contested and when the Artists, behind in the eighth inning loaded the bases, scored, but then had their rally fizzle out, the ninth inning seemed to be a kind of afterthought. The Writers won, 9 to 6.

Here were some of the highlights of the game.

With the Artists ahead 3 to 0 in the second inning, thanks to a towering home run by Eddie McCarthy, biographer Walter Isaacson, (Steve Jobs, Elon Musk, Ben Franklin) came up to face Walter Bernard, the noted graphic artist now pitching for the Artists. The pitches came in slow. But Walter, the batting Walter, after contemplating one pitch after another, wound up taking a walk.

In the third, the Writers got on the board when writer Ted Jones lashed a single to left, scoring Alex Lupica. In the fifth inning, he tied the score hitting a two-run homer to left field, scoring Jonathan Lemire, the Co-Host of the Morning Joe show on MSNBC.

John Avlon, CNN anchor and recent candidate for congressman from New York’s First District, went one for two and helped the Writers in a rally that led to two runs in the fifth.

Perhaps the most interesting inning was the sixth when the Writers scored three runs, the last of which happened when Ruth Pollock, catching at home plate, stood behind the plate rather than in front of it when a throw coming in could have resulted in a third out at home rather than a run, after which an immediate throw to second did result in the final out – eight seconds after the run had scored at home – so the run at home plate stood.

Architect Ronnette Riley managed the Artists from the sidelines, at one point stopping play when the Artists tried to send up a good hitter out of order to spark a rally instead of who was supposed to be up. And columnist Ken Auletta, Media Critic for The New Yorker, managed the Writers.

Other players of note included Lori Singer, the actress and musician, rapper Lance Romance and The New York Times and Washington Post reporter Gabrielle Bluestone. Carl Bernstein, the Watergate journalist, coached first base for the writers.

A bit of amusement came from the existence of a giant scoreboard attached to the center field fence. Nearly 20 feet long, it appeared for the first time last year. In the 76 years prior to that we did not have a scoreboard. And it was a marvel of the age. It was not electrified, but attendants were able to hook large green rectangles with numbers on them to hooks on the scoreboard so they could mark the number of runs scored in any inning.

Sort of.

Last year, the scoreboard failed. It allowed only for nine innings. But the game went into extra innings, for which the scoreboard had no ability to show. Furthermore, the attendants ran out of rectangles with zeroes on them. They were forced, last year, to use big magic markers to make big zeros on the backs of unused rectangles with other numbers on them. A really bad performance.

It had been hoped that this year the scoreboard would have been revised somewhat to account for the possibility of extra innings, but lo and behold, it was not. Fortunately the game ended after the regular nine.

Although this turned out to be a plus, the attendants also failed this year to find where the new zeroes they’d ordered before game time were. So once again, zeroes had to be created on the spot, and even then, when it came to the end with no score in the bottom of the ninth, they just left the place for that rectangle blank. They didn’t have one made in time before everybody went home.

Or they went up to the Camp Rubirosa where the players, hot and sweaty, assembled to go over the afternoon’s events along with enjoying beer and hot hors d’ ouvres. It was also announced all this money raised (whoops and hollers) and the MVP of the game, Paul Winum, who pitched for the Artists and smashed some hits himself.

WRITERS 0 0 1 2 1 3 0 1 1 – 9
ARTISTS 3 0 0 0 0 1 0 2 0 – 6

According to Artists manager Ronnette Riley, only six Writers in total came to bat in the sixth inning, and only two outs were made. Ronnette’s scorecard shows the final score as 8 to 8, a discrepancy that will have to be reviewed or at least smoothed over one way or another before final adjudication results in an entry in the history books for this, the 77th annual game.