{"id":17712,"date":"2011-06-30T13:19:15","date_gmt":"2011-06-30T17:19:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=17712"},"modified":"2018-12-12T15:29:58","modified_gmt":"2018-12-12T20:29:58","slug":"tpr-v-vanity-fair-literary-softball-bullshit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2011\/06\/30\/tpr-v-vanity-fair-literary-softball-bullshit\/","title":{"rendered":"TPR vs. Vanity Fair: Literary Softball Bullshit"},"content":{"rendered":"<pre>Team    |1|2|3|4|5|6|7|8  Total\u2028\r\nVF      |0|1|0|0|0|1|1|1   4\r\nTPR     |2|1|0|0|0|0|0|0   3\r\n<\/pre>\n<p>There\u2019s no easy way to say this, so I\u2019ll just come out with it: yesterday we lost to <em>Vanity Fair<\/em> in softball. I know, I know\u2014we\u2019re embarrassed, we\u2019re 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: \u201cTPR ONLY ONE GAME OUT OF FIRST!\u201d This isn\u2019t a movie though, and thinking about those <em>Vanity Fair <\/em>hooligans pouring champagne all over each other after the game kept me awake last night, and probably will for weeks.<\/p>\n<p>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 \u201cNot to be mean, but <em>Vanity Fair<\/em> really isn\u2019t good at softball.\u201d What hubris. From the third inning on, our bats were silent, our mitts were loose, and before you could say \u201cSiddhartha\u00a0Finch\u201d 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. <em>C\u2019est la vie<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>In the end, we let our\u2014dare I say vanity?\u2014get the best of us. We also let their <a href=\"http:\/\/www.vanityfair.com\/online\/daily\/2008\/08\/the-price-of-hubris-paris-review-4-vf-3.html\">third baseman<\/a>\u2014a big bald guy wearing jorts (jean shorts) and drinking a Coors Light\u2014get the best of us when he told us to quit with our \u201cliterary softball bullshit.\u201d He reminded me of my seventh grade gym teacher. He might actually have been my seventh grade gym teacher.<\/p>\n<p>In a game like this there aren\u2019t 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 \u201cThe Franchise\u201d Maine and the equally spectacular pitching performance by Devin \u201cMeal Ticket\u201d McIntyre. Meal Ticket, we should have pulled you an inning earlier; this loss isn\u2019t on you, so don\u2019t 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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Team |1|2|3|4|5|6|7|8 Total\u2028 VF |0|1|0|0|0|1|1|1 4 TPR |2|1|0|0|0|0|0|0 3 There\u2019s no easy way to say this, so I\u2019ll just come out with it: yesterday we lost to Vanity Fair in softball. I know, I know\u2014we\u2019re embarrassed, we\u2019re heartbroken, and to say that we were demoralized after the game is an understatement. (Oh, how we wept!) [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":199,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[2720,915,20538,92,426,50],"class_list":["post-17712","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-softball","tag-coors-light","tag-hubris","tag-softball","tag-summer","tag-the-paris-review","tag-vanity-fair"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v25.4 (Yoast SEO v25.4) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>TPR vs. Vanity Fair: Literary Softball Bullshit by Cody Wiewandt<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"June 30, 2011 \u2013 Team |1|2|3|4|5|6|7|8 Total\u2028 VF |0|1|0|0|0|1|1|1 4 TPR |2|1|0|0|0|0|0|0 3 There\u2019s no easy way to say this, so I\u2019ll just come out with it: yesterday we\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, 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