The Physics of Baseball

It is something like tying up a boat.
It is an unequal contest: the logic of mass.
You lean back against the line,
and if the wind is still and the tide resting,
the boat comes like an amused dog,
not because is has to, but because
it has no reason not to.

Jack picks up his bat,
clean and jerking it
to his shoulder.
Jack's bat weighs forty-four ounces,
while Jack is only forty-two.

Jack took a practice swing once
and corkscrewed himself knee deep
following his bat around.

"Yer out!", the umpire yelled,
"fer not leaving the on-deck circle!"

"Somebody give me a hand!", Jack replied.
"I can't find my shoes!"

Hitting, Jack says, is a science.
He waits for the wind to die
and the tide to take a break.
Then Jack leans against the line
he has imagined the ball will take;
slowly at first, then slower still,
easing the bat into the strike zone.

It is not hitting the ball that worries Jack:
it is missing and having to find his shoes.

There are ball players they call natural,
but Jack is a scholar among the tobacco chewing,
hoo-rah heroes of high school fame:
Jack thinks about mass, and the mechanics
of rotating objects, and angular frequency.

And Jack thinks about his shoes.

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