Updike’s baseball poem recalled

A blogger on The Nature of Things posted an entry titled “Houston, we have a World Series champion! in celebration of the team’s (and city’s) first World Series championship.

“Baseball is a game that will break your heart two times out of three,” Dorothy Borders writes. “But, oh, that third time is worth waiting for.

“John Updike knew and loved the game and explained it best of all. Let’s give him the last word and then, let the off-season begin!”

Baseball

It looks easy from a distance,easy and lazy, even,until you stand up to the plateand see the fastball sailing inside,an inch from your chin,or circle in the outfieldstraining to get a beadon a small black dota city block or more high,a dark star that could fallon your head like a leaden meteor.

The grass, the dirt, the deadly hops between your feet and overeager glove: football can be learned, and basketball finessed, but there is no hiding from baseball the fact that some are chosen and some are not—those whose mitts feel too left-handed, who are scared at third base of the pulled line drive, and at first base are scared of the shortstop’s wild throw that stretches you out like a gutted deer.

There is nowhere to hide when the ball’s spotlight swivels your way, and the chatter around you falls still, and the mothers on the sidelines, your own among them, hold their breaths, and you whiff on a terrible pitch or in the infield achieve something with the ball so ridiculous you blush for years. It’s easy to do. Baseball was invented in America, where beneath the good cheer and sly jazz the chance of failure is everybody’s right, beginning with baseball.