Baseball
was never meant to be taken seriously—if it were, we would
play it with a javelin instead of a ball.
--
veteran
pitcher Max Surkont
Max
said this back in mid-twentieth century before multimillion
dollar contracts made baseball, like all other show business,
serious business. Dave Baldwin’s memoir Snake Jazz is
about those days when few ballplayers were paid more
than school teachers. Baseball was played because it
was more fun than working for a living. It was so much fun
that players seeing the end of their careers looming
before them became desperate to hang on as long as possible. Snake Jazz tells
of this looming, desperation, and hanging but does
so with a Surkont-like viewpoint – it’s all just entertainment.
The baseball term snake jazz means “curvy pitches.” A snake is
a curveball, so by extension, the gaggle of pitches that behave
similarly (screwball, slider, etc.) is called snake jazz. A
batter would slouch back to the bench after striking out and say, “Man,
he didn’t throw me a fastball – just kept giving that snake
jazz.”
This Snake Jazz site offers a brief summary of the book
as well as a few excerpts. You will also find Dave’s
bio, a plethora of photos from his baseball career, and some carefully
selected links, including links to his artwork and poetry. Thanks
for visiting.
