{"id":3933,"date":"2026-09-13T01:42:00","date_gmt":"2026-09-13T08:42:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/?p=3933"},"modified":"2026-08-15T10:45:20","modified_gmt":"2026-08-15T17:45:20","slug":"foul-ball-by-vin-berardi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/2026\/09\/13\/foul-ball-by-vin-berardi\/","title":{"rendered":"&#8220;Foul Ball&#8221; by Vin Berardi"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><br><em>[written in impossibly fine print beside the commissioner&#8217;s signature on LOT #642a]<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">To Tommy,<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">who deflected this foul ball\u2013which would have ended Game 6\u2013from my glove into his own.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Let this ball, which you will forget about in a week, but later remember as an adult and sell for modest profit, stand as a reminder that your \u201cdream\u201d was more important than mine. That even though I survived an abusive father, two knee surgeries, and a broken marriage, you got to catch a baseball in the stands of a team that has never won a title, captained by a player who will almost certainly be remembered as the right fielder who let a child rob the joy from a city that deserved it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Take pride in this ball. To you, it\u2019s a moment of your young life arising from privilege, and destined to melt into a puddle called childhood\u2014that I\u2019ll see everyday as an oasis I can never reach, as I wander the outfield, wondering if my knees will ever stop hurting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-small-font-size wp-block-paragraph\"><br><em>Vin Berardi is a NYC-based writer specializing in dark, strange, and comic pieces\u2014often at the same time. An acting teacher for 30 years, he hosts The Trilogy Podcast, has a wife named Amy, and a dog named Louise. He reads his stuff out loud to his friends, who respond by telling him to get a haircut.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>[written in impossibly fine print beside the commissioner&#8217;s signature on LOT #642a] To Tommy, who deflected this foul ball\u2013which would have ended Game 6\u2013from my glove into his own. Let this ball, which you will forget about in a week, but later remember as an adult and sell for modest profit, stand as a reminder &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/2026\/09\/13\/foul-ball-by-vin-berardi\/\" class=\"excerpt-link\">Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3933","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pa867U-11r","jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3933","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3933"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3933\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3934,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3933\/revisions\/3934"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3933"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3933"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3933"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}