Last night was the second-to-last game of the season for the New Yorker softball team, played down on the Lower East Side against CNN, a team we’d never actually faced before.
We’ve had a genuinely decent season so far, which I mention now because it’s the last time in this post the word “decent” will apply to anything I personally did.
I rolled up just as the game was starting, fresh off a summer of travelling around the islands of Massachusetts. (I’m working on a piece about things I overheard on Nantucket and Martha’s Vineyard, which will either run in The New Yorker or, if they pass, right here, where the standards are more forgiving.)
Teresa, who designed our uniforms and does the impossible job of herding cartoonists, fact-checkers and writers into a functioning batting order, greeted me with “where the hell have you been?” Which, coincidentally, is also what the ball said every time I swung at it.
Then the Dans took over. (We have six, possibly seven Dans this season. Nobody knows the exact number.) The Dans sort out the field positions: who’s in right, who’s up the middle, who’s at short. I was placed somewhere I could do the least damage, which turned out to be right field. Rightfield Chatfield.
Because here’s my stat line: every single time I swung the bat, I got caught out. Not some of the time. Every time. I wasn’t so much a batter as a very reliable delivery service for the CNN outfield. At one point I hit what I sincerely believed was a home run and then watched an associate producer catch it without moving his toes t. An old Asian man in a green shirt quietly ate soup in the bleachers as I slunk back to the dugout..
The soup smelled fucking delicious..
Rachel Perlman, our assistant cartoon editor, was great- herding people (cats) into ‘In the Hole’ and “In the Hole Hole”.
I contributed vibes.
Mainly vibes.
Someone brought Modellos but I didn’t get any. By the time the lights went out at sunset, we called it at something like 19 to 7. CNN buried us alive. Which is remarkable, really. They tried CNN+, they tried blogging, they’ve even tried Substack, and it turns out the thing they’re still genuinely world-class at is softball.
Well. At least legacy media is still good for something. (Shots fired).
One game left in the season. (We’re playing Slate in Prospect park next Tuesday? I think? I’m writing this on my phone so I can’t fact check this..) I’ll be working on my swing all week, by which I mean lying down until the urge passes.
‘til next time!
Your pal,
PS. Look, if this actually did something for your brain (or at least distracted you from the creeping dread of your own inbox for six minutes), please consider restacking this and sharing it with your people. It’s the only way the word spreads.
