Team    |1|2|3|4|5|6|7   Total
TPR     |4|0|0|4|0|0|4     12HT      |0|2|4|0|0|0|4     10

What a difference a week makes. In the last installment of these notes I detailed Team TPR’s slow descent into mediocrity, a juicy tale rife with last-second losses and clubhouse turmoil. Today, thankfully, I come bearing news of a different color: the color of victory (whatever that is—green?). In what was generally classified as “a bit of an upset” by the national media (and a delicious bit of revenge for last year’s dust-up), David (TPR) felled the brutish Goliath (High Times), armed with nothing more than the competitive spirit and a handful of ringers, including one of Bard baseball’s best—and the former collegiate roommate of now super famous hoopster Jeremy Lin.

Interim captain Noah “Handsome Johnny” Wunsch prefaced the game—which took place two Mondays ago deep within the tangle that is Central Park—with a rousing speech on par with “Cry havoc and let slip the dogs of war!” Properly inspired, we got off to an auspicious start as four Hadadas (?) crossed the plate in the first, two on a big hit by renowned softball free agent James “Peaches” Yeh. (Having played with him and against him, it should be noted: kid can play, especially for an M.F.A. grad from Columbia.) Devin “Chuckles” McIntryre followed by hurling a scoreless bottom frame (his overall pitching performance was exceptional, especially considering that he had to contend with an umpire who called balls and strikes. These stoners play for keeps). Although the Bonghitters (not another dig, actually their official team name) didn’t know it yet, they were in for a long night.

After scoring in the second, they grabbed a slim lead going into the fourth. Things were not looking good. Our bats, once piping hot, had thoroughly chilled; our cocksure attitude at the onset was now replaced with nervous trepidation. We had seen this movie before and knew the ending by heart. Luckily, we responded not as lovable losers but the way champions do: with great aplomb and grace. Our fourth-inning onslaught began, in an unlikely twist, at the bottom of our plucky order, capped by a bases-clearing double by yours truly. (Toot! Toot!) The needle and the damage done, we emerged gloriously victorious—despite a furious seventh inning High Timesrally.

After declining an invitation to participate in a communal post-game “session”—“It’s a scam,” one teammate warned. “They make you pay for it after.”—we began a journey to a downtown bar in a haze of backslapping and pleasant chatter (including a transit exchange between myself and “Peaches” Yeh regarding Denis Johnson’s crime novel Nobody Move, a conversation that inexplicably seemed to offend an older gentleman sitting next to us). At the bar we drank like kings and queens and toasted to all things literary and beautiful and just. Next up on the 2012 TPR redemption tour is Vanity Fair, marking not just a chance of personal retribution for the author, but also the last game of our season.