Playing ball with The New Yorker
Intern's Journal
C.S. Ledbetter III, the ubiquitous receptionist of The New Yorker, sits across from me talking in his amalgamated Southern/Oxford-educated drawl. Surrounded by the dozens of enlarged magazine covers that adorn the walls of the lobby, Ledbetter, with his Frederick Douglass-like afro and beard, has the effect of an eccentric museum curator. I, on the other hand, with my baby blue softball uniform and plaid shorts, look more like an overgrown child. As Ledbetter discusses his former prowess on the softball field, the great glass doors from the editors' offices swings open, and New Yorker editor David Remnick saunters into the lobby. He glances at me over his circular glasses, hooks his thumbs into the belt loops that are hiked halfway up his stomach, and says, "Jeez, you're really going to play softball in this heat?"
"Somebody's gotta do it, David, somebody's gotta do it," I say, invoking a chuckle from the editor. I really have come a long way from my first day.
That day, I could feel the roots of my hair dampening as I approached the Conde Nast building. At 9:30 a.m. it was already hot and humid as I walked from Penn Station into Times Square, focusing all my energy on not sweating. I reduced my speed, wiped my brow, and took a whiff of my armpits. Suddenly, I was in front of 4 Times Square, looking into the building I had dreamed about working in for years. Would I meet Hendrik Hertzberg, master of political commentary? Would the "tipping point" of my summer be when I got to meet Malcolm Gladwell? Perhaps I'd even get to meet Remnick himself, the legendary writer on Russia and boxing, who runs the whole show.
I was 15 minutes early, and people were just starting to file in for the day. A business suit connected to a pair of hard-soled leather loafs breezed past me. High-heeled shoes cantered to the elevators.
"I should have worn a belt," I thought, yanking on my khakis and making sure my picnic-blanket button-down was tucked in. I ambled to the front desk and asked the receptionist to call the 21st floor to announce my arrival. I visualized the entire office eagerly awaiting the arrival of their new intern. But the receptionist told me nobody was there and I should wait a few minutes. 10 o'clock really means 10 o'clock, I mused.
I assumed a post standing awkwardly at the side of the lobby. Suddenly, in from the street came a flock of Vogue and Glamour girls. The wave of perfume that came crashing into the lobby behind them followed the pack into the elevators just as the front desk allowed me to proceed up into the heart of the magazine. Alone in the elevator, I took the time to rub frantically at my hair and face in an effort to appear calm and collected for my boss.
This type of nervous behavior marked my first days as an intern. My jobs were simple, but whether I was organizing files for editors or moving boxes of magazines, I never felt comfortable (partly because of all the heavy lifting, I had become one of the only "sweaty guys" in the super-air conditioned office). Typically, when an important editor or writer walked by, I would either look at my feet or study the carpet. And since it was often hard to distinguish the Mark Singers, Malcolm Gladwells and Nick Paumgartens from the Joe Schmoes and Patty Interns, I found myself quite familiar with the New Yorker's floor pattern.
Then, just a week into work, I learned about the company softball team, and everything seemed to change. Unlike in the office world, I have always felt confident on a softball diamond. At 6:15 p.m., a burbling brook of baby blue uniforms flowed out of the Conde Nast building, onto the subway, and uptown to Central Park. There I found myself in a softball utopia, surrounded by glove-wearing, beer-drinking, bat-toting, middle-aged men. It was like I was peeking at my future. And there, on Field 11, was our opponent, the hyper-intellectual Paris Review. It was clear from the warm-ups what kind of team they were. They were a lot better at describing their play than playing.
"Hitting it any further than that would just be superfluous," I heard one say about a short pop-up.
"We shall play like the Spartans," I heard from another.
In my first at bat I cracked a triple. After scoring a run on a bloop-single hit by another intern, I jogged passed various writers, editors and cartoonists, getting high-fives from everyone, and I realized I could interact with these people. The next day, Pam McCarthy, the magazine's deputy editor, approached me.
"Hey Ben, I heard about your heroics in yesterday's game," she said.
I was in heaven.
In the following weeks I met with writers and editors. I talked about journalism, sports and everything else. I met with Daniel Zalewski, the magazine's features editor for coffee, and learned about how to balance being an editor with being a writer. I met people whose work I had read and respected for years, and hardly dropped a sweat. I made Malcolm Gladwell laugh with an astute quip about his book Blink. (Isn't it ironic to spend so much time thinking about a book about the virtue of not thinking?) I even was willing to shake hands with people without fear of having clammy palms. It was during this time that I actually learned something from the job. Instead of simply doing mindless grunt work all day, I managed to do the grunt work and learn about what it means to work for a magazine. I was finally feeling good about my summer.
It was with this self-assurance that I approached our biggest game of the season: a game against arch rival Vanity Fair.
We had just come off of wins against the Paris Review, the Nation and Harper's Weekly, but The New Yorker had not beat Vanity Fair for six years. After the first inning, it was not looking good. We were already down by seven to opponents with designer hairdos and shoes. Over the next five innings, we clawed our way back to a tie game. For the seventh and last inning, coach Matt Delinger, the man in charge of the magazine's web site, put me at second base.
Coming in as a relief pitcher was none other than one of my idols, Hendrick Hertzberg. I had not yet talked with him, but I had spent much of the summer reading his 700-page book "Politics." Hertzberg's first pitch, a slow knuckleball, was hammered to the right side. I lunged to my left, scooped up the ball, and sidearmed it to the first baseman. After letting up a hard-hit single, Hertzberg allowed a Vanity Fair batter to bloop a ball into right field. I chased after it, and fired a shot to third, nailing the greedy runner. With two outs, the last batter lined a ball directly into my glove. As I ran to our bench, Hertzberg patted my back and said, "Hey, you really saved me out there." I couldn't believe it. One of the best political writers alive was thanking me!
It didn't even matter to me when we won the game in the bottom of the inning (I actually scored the winning run.) All that mattered was that after the game, we went to the bar as a team, a team that I was a part of.
The next day I stood in a small walk-in closet moving hundreds of boxes. Despite my aching back, my sweat-slicked hair and my slight claustrophobia, I worked through the day with a smile. All I had to think of was the previous day's glory, and next week's game against the Wall Street Journal.
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