July 5, 2012 Softball TPR Softball: Failure’s No Success at All By Cody Wiewandt Somewhere a Hadada quietly weeps. It’s been a rough two weeks on the diamond for The Paris Review, culminating in an extra-inning loss to a venerable (cough) Harper’s side—a loss that had the ghost of George Plimpton clucking in disapproval. As the calendar flips to July and a once promising season slowly turns to shit, it has become apparent that we are simply not to be trusted. The talent is there, but it’s mercurial, slave to whim and whimsy. As a team we’ve adapted an identity that is generously enigmatic: although capable of lighting up any softball scoreboard in greater Manhattan, lately it seems that we are just trying to get our jerseys on. Read More
June 18, 2012 Softball TPR vs. The Nation; or, The Evening Redness in Lower Manhattan By Cody Wiewandt Team |1|2|3|4|5|6|7 Total TPR |0|0|3|0|0|1|0 4 NAT |5|0|0|0|4|0|X 9 Within the first minute the slaughter had become general. —Blood Meridian Themes found in Cormac McCarthy’s grotesque 1985 masterpiece, Blood Meridian, hereby presented in descending order relative to how closely they can be applied to a postgame dissection of last week’s softball game against The Nation: 1. Destruction, ChaosBlood Meridian is essentially a chronicle of destruction, a hurricane of terrible things like knives and guns and dead babies. This game, while not a massacre of flesh, was nonetheless a massacre (maybe of the human spirit?). From the onset, our side played a sloppy game; a slew of early errors gave The Nation a first-inning lead they would not relinquish. Like in the novel, the slaughter was complete; unlike in the novel, it was mostly self-inflicted. Read More
June 14, 2012 Softball TPR vs. n+1: Vindication By Cody Wiewandt Team |1|2|3|4|5|6|7 Total TPR |0|0|4|0|0|7|X 11 n+1 |0|0|0|1|0|0|0 1 Last Monday afternoon two literary magazines played a softball game. As you can see by the above scoreboard, Team Paris Review won handily. The short version: we played quite well—hitting sharp singles and putting the fun in fundamentals and whatnot—while n+1 was … not at their best. Whether it was due to the absence of baseball’s most notorious novelist, Chad Harbach, or an off day on the mound by noted scoundrel Marco Roth, “the best goddamn literary magazine in America” (—Mary Karr) lacked its usual vigor and fortitude. Digging deep into the archives, it appears this is a new development: one of the most heartbreaking defeats in TPR softball history came two years ago against this very squad. Our victory, while certainly a boon for all things moral and just, failed to properly quench our thirst for vengeance, leaving us instead with a numb, hollow “meh” feeling, a sensation that, I would imagine, is akin to eating a piece of cake that is neither chocolate nor made out of ice cream. Read More
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.