July 22, 2011 Softball TPR vs. NYM: Bittersweet Victory By Cody Wiewandt Team |1|2|3|4|5|6|7|8|9 Total TPR |5|2|2|4|2|6|0|0|1 22 NYM |1|6|2|0|0|0|4|0|0 13 A preface: on Saturday morning we played The Wall Street Journal, and in classic capitalist fashion they brought their own umpire. Suffice it to say we lost, although not that badly. (13-8 sounds about right.) We can’t all be Wendi Deng. For our sake and yours, let’s move on to Monday’s game against New York. Without our lovable leader Stephen Andrew Hiltner (away on official summer business) the duties of captain fell to me, which only meant making sure we had enough people at the game. This proved harder than it seemed. (A few of our regulars were out of town.) With the help of a few ringers, though, I managed to assemble the greatest softball team this side of the Springfield Nuclear Power Plant squad of ’92. New York managed to stay close for a few innings, but there was no chance they could keep pace with our top-to-bottom offensive juggernaut. There weren’t any lucky bounces or close calls—we hit everything hard. The usual suspects were up to their old tricks (“Sonny” Jim Rutman hit a laser off the scoreboard for an automatic home run), and the new blood didn’t disappoint (props to Tom “Jeopardy!” Nissley and to someone known in my notes only as “The Ringer”). The only blemish on the game was when I tripped rounding third base, falling flat on my face, in what was surely the highlight of the day for the other team. Up 21–9 in the top of the seventh inning, we assumed New York would be eager to call it a day. It was a pleasant surprise when they insisted we play a full nine. We cruised through the last few innings, aided by a dominant pitching performance from Marco “The Barber” Roth. Former deputy editor David Wallace-Wells was conspicuously absent (perhaps he was afraid to face his formidable former colleagues). As the game ended, the rain—which had held off until then—began to fall in a most unpoetic fashion. A few of us retired to a nearby tavern where we sipped whiskey and considered the Oxford comma into the wee hours of the morning. In our last six games we’ve outscored our opponents by twenty-seven runs, yet we’ve won only three times. This particular win is bittersweet, both a validation of our talent and a reminder of what could have been.
July 14, 2011 Softball TPR v. The New Yorker: Lucky and Good By Cody Wiewandt Team |1|2|3|4|5|6|7 Total TPR |5|1|3|3|0|2|0 14 TNY |2|0|0|1|0|0|1 4 After a month of losing to common thugs and schoolyard bullies, it didn’t feel bad to finally look in the mirror and realize that we had become the very thing we loathed: namely, winners. Although they had nicer uniforms than we did, we soundly defeated The New Yorker 14–4 (though, to be honest, we stopped counting after four innings), and the nectar of victory tasted oh so sweet. Even down a few key players (I’m looking at you Creswell), we had no trouble handling this Condé squad and their occasionally suspect defense. They say it’s better to be lucky than good, but it’s even better to be both—and today, we were. Remember these names: Thomas, Wizner, Rutman, Pashman, Hiltner. A veritable murderers’ row, these five scored early and often, catalyzing a five-run first that proved to be just a taste of things to come. In the field, Devin “Ol’ Stubblebeard” McIntyre took the mound again and, after a rocky start, pitched another gem. The grass was green, the sky was blue, and there was nothing and no one that could slow us down. The rest of the game went by like the pages of a calendar, eventful only in that they were over. In the sixth, our captain Stephen “Little General” Hiltner made a spectacular diving grab in the outfield, only to complain later that he got his favorite shorts dirty. The grass stains on Hiltner’s sparkling white shorts (they really are beautiful, Stephen) proved to be the only blemish on a convincing Parisian win. Far from satisfied, we stuck around for an impromptu batting practice before joining The New Yorker at our favorite pub, Tap-a-Keg, where, aside from a brief pizza-related scuffle, fun was had by all. Up next: The Wall Street Journal and their solid-gold bats.
June 30, 2011 Softball TPR vs. Vanity Fair: Literary Softball Bullshit By Cody Wiewandt Team |1|2|3|4|5|6|7|8 Total VF |0|1|0|0|0|1|1|1 4 TPR |2|1|0|0|0|0|0|0 3 There’s no easy way to say this, so I’ll just come out with it: yesterday we lost to Vanity Fair in softball. I know, I know—we’re embarrassed, we’re heartbroken, and to say that we were demoralized after the game is an understatement. (Oh, how we wept!) If life were a sports movie, this would be the game right before our turnaround, the low point that brings us back together, spurring us on to greatness. Our grizzled coach would make a passionate speech, and our distracted star player would wake up and dedicate himself to the team. Cut to the montage where we hit home runs and laugh at our practical jokes, topped off by a spinning newspaper with a headline like: “TPR ONLY ONE GAME OUT OF FIRST!” This isn’t a movie though, and thinking about those Vanity Fair hooligans pouring champagne all over each other after the game kept me awake last night, and probably will for weeks. It started off well enough: after two innings we were up three to one, and it seemed like the rest of the game would be a walk in the park or a day at the beach or a peach on a beach or something like that. I started thinking about what I would write, certain I would preface it with “Not to be mean, but Vanity Fair really isn’t good at softball.” What hubris. From the third inning on, our bats were silent, our mitts were loose, and before you could say “Siddhartha Finch” we were in extra innings. After holding us at no runs in the top half of the eighth, they scored the winning run on a sharp single into right field. C’est la vie. In the end, we let our—dare I say vanity?—get the best of us. We also let their third baseman—a big bald guy wearing jorts (jean shorts) and drinking a Coors Light—get the best of us when he told us to quit with our “literary softball bullshit.” He reminded me of my seventh grade gym teacher. He might actually have been my seventh grade gym teacher. In a game like this there aren’t many highlights, but it would seem like adding salt to the wound if I failed to mention a spectacular catch by our right fielder Karen “The Franchise” Maine and the equally spectacular pitching performance by Devin “Meal Ticket” McIntyre. Meal Ticket, we should have pulled you an inning earlier; this loss isn’t on you, so don’t beat yourself up. You two surely can hold your heads high; the rest of us can remind ourselves that even though we lost, our mothers still love us.
June 16, 2011 Softball TPR vs. High Times: The Stoners Win By Cody Wiewandt Team |1|2|3|4|5|6|7 Total HT |3|2|3|1|0|?|0 12* TPR |0|0|1|3|4|1|2 11 Of all the great rivalries in magazine softball, none is as heated as the annual High Times–TPR soiree. The Bonghitters, as they like to be called, are a formidable force despite their propensity for a very unathletic activity. (“We had a 29-game undefeated streak in the early 2000s,” former editor in chief Steve Bloom once boasted to The New York Times.) The Parisians rallied as best they could; two of our stronger players—Chris “Art of Fielding” Parris-Lamb and Paul “The Fixer” Wachter—removed their ties and dusted off their gloves for the game. There was some huffing (a few words at second base, a few elbows in the baselines), some puffing (a spirited rules discussion, an almost-spirited bench-clearing brawl), and when the dust cleared they had (just barely) blown our house down. Things we know for certain: we scored eleven runs. Things we don’t know for certain: they scored twelve. Like in Rashomon, it depends on who you ask. Yes, we succumbed to eviler forces when we let stand a phantom run they claimed crossed in the sixth, but, really, it just felt like the right thing to do. This is not to say we didn’t go down swinging—au contraire! Down by eight runs early, we did our best Dallas Mavericks impression to claw our way back to within one run of a tie. Then, in the sixth, our confidence faltered. A throwing error (by yours truly) and some timely Times hitting extended their lead to three, which is where it would sit until the final frame. A two-run homer by Jim “Big Tree” Rutman (his second of the day) briefly buoyed our spirits, but ultimately that was the closest we’d get to salvation. Although we lost, we’re not all sad. Three cheers for the Big Tree, whose two home runs collectively had enough juice to make it to Brooklyn. Two more cheers go out to our captain, Stephen “Andrew” Hiltner, for his fancy base running and his even fancier mitt. And we might as well throw in another one for the needed lesson in humility. It’s a long, long season—better to stay grounded. Until next year, High Times.
June 6, 2011 On Sports It Never Gets Old By Louisa Thomas When an athlete grows old, when she slips and starts making errors, you say that her body betrays her. What you mean is that she betrays you. A superhuman should not age. So you punish her with your attention, with your nostalgia and condescension, and also with your neglect. You turn your gaze to the young. For the first two weeks of this year’s French Open, that’s what happened. Sure, younger players had earned the spotlight. Novak Djokovic was in the middle of one of the longest win streaks in the history of tennis. If he made the French Open final, he would become number one. For his part, Rafa Nadal was looking to equal Björn Borg’s record of six French Open titles. No one expected much of Roger Federer. Even Anna Wintour, who sat in Federer’s box in Paris, had more or less conceded Djokovic’s dominance, featuring the Serb in tiny swimming briefs in the pages of Vogue, where once Roger had been king. Federer is twenty-nine years old. On the women’s side, the favorite was a beautiful blonde Dane, Caroline Wozniacki, twenty years old. She had never won a major, but never mind. The defending champion, Francesca Schiavone, who has hollow cheeks and a habit of kissing the dirt, wasn’t given a chance. Some thought her win last year—she had been seeded seventeenth—was a fluke, and besides she is ancient, nearly thirty-one. But Wozniacki lost in the third round, and when the finals arrived Schiavone was there again, and this time playing the twenty-nine-year-old Li Na, best known for being Asian and having a tattoo. “With a combined age of sixty years seventy-nine days, Li and Schiavone make up the oldest French Open final pairing since 1986,” said The New York Times. Li and Schiavone were pressed to explain their advanced ages. “Is like the wine,” Schiavone said. “Stay in the bottle more is much, much better.” “I’m not old,” Li Na insisted. “Why do you think I’m old?” Read More
November 4, 2010 On Sports Hustle and Flow By Louisa Thomas Dear Will, It’s often said that a loss hurts more than a victory can heal. As a rule, it might be true, but it didn’t seem so on Monday night. After fifty-six years of waiting, the Giants finally won the World Series, and San Francisco set itself on fire. Lee pitched a hell of a game. Hats off to him—he is the beau ideal, I’ll give you that. But give me the weird one; give me Tim Lincecum. At rest, slouchy and loose, wearing a grimy, graying cap, he looks like a teenager cupping a spliff in his hand. But then he begins. The torque—the spring—the splits—the snap! His coaches call his motion “flow.” He did not dominate the Rangers so much as confound them. Mighty hitters were reduced to awkward little jerks of the bat. Remarkably, he may not even be the Giants’ best pitcher—Matt Cain threw more than twenty-one scoreless innings in the postseason—but he’s the best to watch. I nearly missed it all. As it happens, when the game began, I was at Lincoln Center. The tickets had been purchased long ago, back when it looked like the Giants might not even make the playoffs. The Dresden Staatskappelle was playing Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 4. I think it was nice, but I wasn’t really playing attention. Instead, I was sitting in the back row, pressing refresh on my Blackberry. One scoreless inning, two… Ah! Perfido was next on the program. Ah, Perfido?! I bolted and headed to the nearest bar. I’m very fond of these Giants. They came upon me by surprise. Then again, not totally. The Giants were my dad’s team growing up. He used to tell me about Willie Mays, who played with power and with passion and who smiled. He had a pigeon-toed gait, bowlegs, long arms, and a barrel chest. A strange specimen. A Giant! It’s been a pleasure watching the World Series with you, Will. Better luck next year! Louisa