THE ART OF BASEBALL

by Melodie Johnson Howe

I spent Sunday attempting to do The New York Times crossword puzzle and watching baseball. I love the game. It’s a mixture of choreography, chess, star turns, and contact sport. It also has something that most other sports do not: a mixture of young players and aging players. I saw Curt Shilling, the Boston Red Sox pitcher, who is in his early forties, shut the Angels down. He was pure finesse. Due to his age he no longer has his hard stuff. But being a pro he has learned how to trick the batter with skill and flair. I also saw the forty-something Yankee pitcher Roger Clemens. They call him The Rocket, but they should call him The Silo (a crossword puzzle word by the way). He lacked all finesse. His technique and skill had abandoned him. As beautiful as Schilling was to watch Clemens was painful to see. The Yankees rallied to win.

Watching these two pitchers reminded me of a poem I cut out of The New Yorker magazine a long time ago and saved. Of course I can’t find it when I need it. Even worse I can’t remember the poet’s name. The poem is about a pitcher and what his goal is. I do remember the last line: “The pitcher must make the batter understand. Too late.”

It’s a poem about craft and skill. It connected with me because it’s the same for a writer who must make the reader understand. Too late. In other words after the fact. I have a hard time bringing my sense of creativity into football and basketball so I don’t watch them. But not baseball. Among all the spitting, crotch adjusting, kicking dirt on an umpire’s feet, and brawls is an art as delicate and as tough as poetry.