Chin Music — An Ode to Baseball
Editor’s note: And now, for something completely different—Chin Music, a baseball poem from Jeffrey Steinberg.
Play ball!
I believe in the thud of a fastball smacking into a weary, leathered mitt softened by tobacco juice.
I see fingers flashing signs. Not for gas. Not this time.
And the pitcher, one of the immortals with a magician’s touch—like Sandy Koufax, Bob Gibson, or Jim Palmer—spins a curveball that gyrates on a wild trajectory to flummoxed deities.
Legends like Willie Mays, Frank Robinson, or Mickey Mantle, impatiently statuesque in the box, their bats ready to burst like champagne corks as the red-threaded orb twists and feints and swivels its way toward them.
And then, a whoosh, a whisper, a gust of wind worthy of a hurricane, and the finality of a cowhide whomp. The umpire, seeing this, swings out his fist, stabs the aura, and barks, Strike three.
Innings later, a reprise.
Roberto Clemente, Stan “The Man” Musial or Reggie Jackson digs in again while the pitcher, Warren Spahn, Tom Seaver or Don Drysdale eyes him warily.
A timeless beauty. Their bodies synchronized. Eyes ablaze.
The pitcher swings into a balletic motion of furious intent, as the batter waggles ash over his shoulder.
An arm hurtles forward in a violent spasm and the ethereal orb slices through expectations.
And then a split-second later insinuates itself. A split-fingered fastball? A slider? A screwball? The batter ponders the question being asked.
And then, an answer.
A fastball high and tight. The sweet sounds of chin music whistles past the ear of history, as it has so many times before. A classic piece of pitching.
The body understands up and in as it arches backwards, before collapsing into the brown dirt with a thud of relief even as the wooden cudgel flies off to the side, like a bunt driven into the dust.
Rising to his feet, the batter’s eyes scream at the pitcher: Do you hold these truths of the high hard one to be self-evident?
The pitcher smirks.
The batter collects himself and shakes dirt off his uniform as the pitcher stares in and murmurs:
I pledge allegiance to the history of location, movement and velocity. To the timeless mythology of balls and strikes, done the American way. And to the ninth inning. The final out. The complete game. The national pastime.
