They're all waiting on the pitcher, he's a faceful of boding, upper body drawn forward, glove hand dangled at the knee. He's reading and reading the sign. He's reading the sign. Hitter fidgeting in the box. This son of a buck can bring it.
The shortstop moves his feet to break the trance of waiting.
It's the rule of confrontation, faithfully maintained, written across the face of every slackwit pitcher since there were teams named the Superbas and the Bridegrooms. The difference comes when the ball is hit. Then nothing is the same. The men are moving, coming out of their crouches, and everything submits to the pebble-skip of the ball, to rotations and backspins and airstreams. There are drag coefficients. There are trailing vortices. There are things that apply unrepeatably, muscle memory and pumping blood and jots of dust, the narrative that lives in the spaces of the official play-by-play.
-Don DeLillo, Underworld
great passage. what a book that was... in many respects!
ReplyDeleteLove, love DeLillo. Haven't been enamored with his books since Underworld, but for a while there he was the best writer out there. I'll have to pick up the ol' tome again one of these days for a re-read.
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