Lydia Sidur

#15 - C, 2B (profile)

Lydia played with DRS for three seasons, from 2000 through 2002. At the time, she worked in Audit, in the same unit as fellow taxmen Mike Malone, George Duggan, and Carol Bagley.

Lydia had little softball experience prior to joining the team, so at first her playing time was limited to pinch hitting appearances and time spent behind the plate as the team’s catcher. But by the end of her first season, she became comfortable enough catching and throwing the ball to the point she was promoted as the starting secondbaseman.

At the plate, Lydia rarely hit fly balls out of the infield, but had the remarkable ability to get on base (and infuriate opposing teams) by accidentally topping the ball and beating out infield hits. Never before has someone got so many singles by hitting the ball three feet.

For a time, it was easy to determine when Lydia was playing simply by arriving at the field. Her enormous bullmastiff, Phoebe, could be seen tied up by the DRS bench a hundred yards away from the parking lot. The dog was as big as a pony.

Overall, Lydia played 38 games, and had 24 base hits, 29 runs scored, and 8 runs batted in. In a 2002 DRS win over Hughes Health, she went 3 for 5, scored 4 times, and drove in a run.

She stopped playing with DRS following her transfer out of the agency to the Labor Department, but stays in touch with the team’s ups and downs by remaining on the game wrap-up email distribution list.