COHEN'S CONCOCTIONS #3

THE EARTH IS NOT A BLUEPRINT FOR A BASEBALL

Is a baseball a small-scale replica of our immense earth-ball? Gladly no, because of the latter's uneven circumference, with all its inverted protrusions and eccentric surfaces. Were a baseball to emulate this, the result would be a luck-over-skill imbalance. The ball would dipsy-do, skeetering like a whiffle-ball, skurving like a frisbee, in uncalculated bounces, like a football fumble that brutes re-dive for in out-of joint double-takes, making for duplex photos. Pitchers may thrive on this, but fielders, batters, and catchers would suffer finger-blows and toe-knockabouts, plus knee-implosions and elbow malfunctions, not to mention vanity dips. So please, earth, don't give baseball-manufacturers any weird ideas. Let a baseball be round by geometry, rather than a plaything to cruel gambles of chance, setting loose such unsportsmanlike chaos that anarchy would rumble hysterically over the old ball game. Even the foul lines would wander astray from their assigned positions. Demented umpires would run out of coins to toss, creating planetary freefall in the cosmic stock market. The crumbling firmament would lose its earthball-bearing, and the world series would not be played that year. Mere football would stick its crooked tongue out, mocking baseball's hairline display of dignity. Sacrilege! Get earth's orbit back on its slot. Let pure geometry preserve a sanitary roundness in our classically stitched baseball, which glistens in the sun's applause and plays fairly with the howling moon under the serenading arcs.

Marvin Cohen is the author of several books including Baseball The Beautiful (1974) and a former creative writing teacher at the New School. Marvin plays first base for Softball For The Love Of It.