there’s the sheer beauty of it for athet, you know know all the sports have great athletes but for sheer grace and speed, for for, the combination of power and grace there’s nothing like what happens say in the infield when a beautiful double play is turned to see Ozzie Smith made plays at short stop that that were balletic in a way that nothing, and I mean nothing that happens in those other games matches
– David Bentley Hart
No one. And I mean no one, speaks baseball the way David Bentley Hart does. The details, the passion, the reverence.
All in time for Spring Training.
That from the new documentary DBH: Cutting Forms from Mystery:
Steady thy laden head across a brook;
Or by a cider-press, with patient look,
Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours.
Keats, John. The Poetry of John Keats. London: Arcturus Publishing Limited, 2018.
We rhapsodize about “New England Autumns,” and for good reason; but, really, Autumn anywhere in the deciduous forests of North America, especially in the East—from upper Canada to the deep South—is magnificent, and far outshines anything the Old World has to offer. In those years in which I have found myself in some corner of Europe during the Fall, I have never been able to suppress a certain feeling of disappointment at the limited palette nature employs there for what is surely my favorite of the seasons. This isn’t to say European Autumn is not lovely enough, with its muted light and drifting mists and pale flavescence. But the chromatic spectrum is narrow. For the most part, the trees pass from a darker to a more limpid green, and then to light gold, and then to ochre and brown, before their branches are stripped bare. There are occasional bright flashes of red and maroon amid the tawny pallor, though mostly from imported species of flora. But, to an eye accustomed to the endlessly varying hues of America’s Autumn, it can all seem a little insipid.
– David Bentley Hart
Always on the hunt for enlightened passages on Autumn. Of course David Bentley Hart delivers.
I’ve never considered the differences between a European Autumn and an American one. One would think Autumn is the same everywhere.
Obviously it isn’t. The biodiversity in different regions of the world make it so. But like a therapist telling you you’re not sleeping enough, it takes an attentive, neutral observer, to make you aware.
Ohtani makes me believe that many of the stories of the heroes of old, of Greek myth, or Mesopotamian myth, Arab or African myth, or whatever myth, that such men did walk the earth
– David Bentley Hart
Damn. Some men have it all. Ohtani is baseball’s George Clooney.
And lets admit it. It’s annoying. He’s tall. And handsome. And suave. And you know, its just, he makes the rest of us feel just slightly less human.
– David Bentley Hart
And Ohtani’s underrated, but awe inspiring skill:
The thing that amazes me most when I’m watching him is not necessarily the massively soaring home runs, or the one hundred and one mile per hour fastball on the corner. It’s actually watching him run the bases, because he does it like a gazelle. He’s moving as fast as some of the fastest runners in the game, but he looks like he’s just taking long, easy, loping strides when he does it. He’ll steal without a slide half the time, because he doesn’t have to slide. He’s an amazing specimen. And happily plays the only game in the world worthy of his skills.
– David Bentley Hart
I echo that last statement. Once, I watched Ohtani stretch out a double and his helmet flew off while he was running. I couldn’t help but smile. I thought “man this guy is having fun”.
This excerpt begins at 12:40. Watch the interview in full from the C.S. Lewis foundation below.
No player in the history of the franchise, moreover, was better loved by the city and region he represented. Mind you, this was in part because he shares with Carl Yastrzemski the almost unimaginable distinction of having played for a single team for twenty-three years. In part, too, it was because of the unparalleled excellence of his play. And in part it was because he was a man of almost legendary kindness and decency.
Floodlights and Goalposts 