The Fireballer

by Mark Stevens

There isn’t a muscle or ligament not engaged in pitching a baseball. Fibers fire together in a symphony of motion, as if it is one thing and not a bunch of parts. And they need to do it the same from first pitch to last. His mind needs to grasp the pieces of action, but so does his body.

It’s an old baseball fact—you make a dazzling play in the field, you’re first up in your half of the inning. Fate.

This is about tradition. Baseball polices itself in its own ugly fashion with its own miserable traditions.

Workers hoof the seats,

havent heard tgis expression before

He is a freak, and I mean that in the kindest way possible. Mozart was a freak. Symphony number one at age eight? Give me a break. And so was Arthur Rimbaud. Yes, a poet can be a freak. And Arthur Rimbaud was about Frank Ryder’s age today when he started writing one of his most famous works, A Season in Hell. This is a sports show and not a book club, but we all took English 101 for a reason. That poem, among other topics, posed a question that is central to all of us about the nature of hope and testing the limits of human existence. It’s considered a masterpiece, and Rimbaud was nineteen years old when he started writing it. Of course, music and poetry are art and not spectator sports. Of course, nobody wants to see Frank Ryder’s career end like this. Of course true fans of the game would love it if Ryder was in Detroit to show us how he can perform in that kind of limelight. If it’s a blister, great. Let’s get Frank Ryder back out on the mound and wrestle with the question of how baseball is going to answer the existential question that he poses every time he throws a fastball a hundred and ten miles per hour. If there’s something else going on, then we can assume that right now Frank Ryder is the one whose season has truly, well, gone to hell.”

Great writing. I know Mark is a huge reader, showing his depth here.

Ryder boxes with sleep.

Nice!

Ryder doesn’t quite get it. What do those years of practice mean? What do those years of work and focus mean? What was the point? What is this game? It’s everything, of course, and pure nothingness too.

We didn’t choose to be born into a world where you don’t get to control your own fate . . . We’re just here .

The sky is clear. There might be more stars than the spaces in between.

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