the poem " Body and Soul"?

Question

Have anyone read the poem "Body and Soul "by B.H.Fairchild? What does this poem mean?

Answer 1

From:

http://www.sci.edu/sleepyweasel/Weasel03/baseball.html


All of my life, I've played that great game of baseball. I've been on many teams and have won many games - I've even been a part of a few tournament champion teams. Baseball is an everyday man's game - that's why it's America's favorite pastime. The memories created from playing baseball as a young child cannot be duplicated by anything else. The long sun-drenched summers of playing double-headers day after day can really become exhausting, but after the season ends you are always itching to get back on the diamond. So I could relate to B.H. Fairchild's poem "Body and Soul" right off the bat. This poem is a great baseball story, one that could be told for ages.

As a kid, growing up playing sports, I was always going from one to the other. Sports were my life, and still are a huge part of it. I mean what else does a kid have to worry about except for the next big game? Lucky for me, I grew up in a neighborhood where there were a lot of kids - and a few my age. These kids became my best friends, and still are to this day; a big part of the reason we're still buds is because of the memories we've mad through playing sports - in this case, baseball. I always played with these kids of all my baseball teams growing up, and I came to learn about other kids on the teams, too. That's why the game is so great; it's just about one of the best ways to meet new friends. And this isn't anything new, either. It's been going on for years. My dad - I remember him always telling me about his baseball buddies, and how he went to camps with them and was always around them playing baseball. Today, a lot of these guys are still my dad's friends, grown up now with their own families but with memories of summer baseball never to be forgotten. For men, baseball is a bonding experience, a way of getting together and working together to give 110 percent, sweating and getting dirty. For me, it's a game where I can go out and play and take out some aggression, release everything that has been bothering me and just think about the game. It's a release, and it replenishes my soul when I'm playing.

So the first stanza of Fairchild's "Body and Soul" was one I could relate to right away. It's a typical setting, dads sitting around drinking some bourbon and telling the old baseball stories.

Half-numb, guzzling bourbon and Coke from coffee mugs,
our fathers fall in love with their own stories, nuzzling
the facts but mauling the truth …

As a kid growing up, I heard all the stories, too. Dad would tell me about how he played and sometimes showed me the newspaper clippings of his all-star moments. When he took me to baseball camp in Missouri as a youngster, we had ample time to talk about the good times he had as a kid going to camp too. These stories haven't stopped - I still hear about dad playing ball. I don't mind the stories, though; Dad is just bringing back the old memories as he sees me play. I think I remind him of when he was a kid. He never pressured me into playing, he never tried to live vicariously through me, and baseball was something I chose to start playing on my own. I do believe I get the love for the game from my dad, though; he's just like me when it comes to playing ball - we take it seriously. Just think if you could get 20 kids on a team like that. You'd be pretty good.

As the poem goes on, one of the dads begins to tell a story about a sandlot baseball game in Oklahoma back in the 1940s.

These were men's teams, grown men, some in their thirties
and forties who worked together in zinc mines or on oil rigs,
sweat and khaki and long beers after work, steel guitar music
whanging in their ears …

Sandlot games, or pick-up games, are still played all over today. We always try to get a game together, whether it be home-run derby or just Indian ball. In the poem, the dad tells a story about how the other team one day came up one man short, but they brought a kid who was just 15 years old to fill the roster. They looked at the innocent looking kid and thought, yeah, go ahead and let him play, even though this kid carried himself in a little different way. This boy had a swagger to him like he knew the game.

… But they chatter
and say rock and fire, babe, easy out, and go right ahead
and pitch to the boy, but nothing fancy, just hard fastballs
right around the belt, and the kid takes the first two
but on the third pops the bat around so quick and sure
that they pause a moment before turning around to watch
the ball still rising and finally dropping far beyond
the abandoned tractor that marks left field.

The guys watch with amazement, cursing, how far the ball flew. The second time he comes up to bat, he gets a slider and they get the same result. It happens not one more time but three more times, including one time switch-hitting left-handed.

… He swings exactly the way he did right-handed
and they all turn like a chorus line toward deep right field
where the ball loses itself in sagebrush and the sad burnt
dust of dustbowl Oklahoma.

Then comes the best part of the story - come to find out this wasn't your everyday kid. This was the late, great Mickey Mantle.

To these guys in the poem, winning wasn't everything. They could have walked the kid, but they were "Men who knew how to play the game, / who had talent" and too much pride to do it that way.

… And so they did not walk him,
and lost, but at least had some ragged remnant of themselves
to take back home.

And although the guy's team didn't like the result of letting this kid play, they went home to their wives and drank cocktails and listened to the radio with memories of the day's game. Winning isn't everything to me, either. It's definitely enjoyable, but getting the opportunity to play at the college level is a blessing all in itself to me. While I'm young, I look forward to going out there to practice the game I love every day. That's what baseball was to these men, too, a way of going out and forgetting the job and the wife and just playing the game they loved. The men believed they had been through much harder things in life, a depression and a war, and their pride for the fame and their soul would not let them walk him. They chose to pitch to him, and although they lost they still went home to play another day.

To conclude, "Body and Soul" is a great example of how baseball is such a great game. These men went out every :Sunday for a sandlot game to forget the week's stress and relieve their soul of it. Baseball for me is the same way - when I step across that foul line, I forget about the day's work or the week's stress. I just think about the game. When I go home, as the men in the poem went home, life is back to normal - with the wife, work and, in my case, school. When I have children, I hope to keep the dream alive and watch them grow up playing and beginning to love the game that I have come to love so dearly. I'll be just like my dad was with me, always encouraging the game and passing on memories.