The Double Play Monologue

In the poem “The Double Play”, the author uses metaphors, words, and phrases to suggest turning a double play in baseball is like a dance. Some words throughout the poem could be used to connect the idea of a double play being like dancing. One word that could suggest this is, the word used “poised”, “Its flight to the running poised second baseman” (12). Poised in this sense could mean that the player knows what he is doing and has mastered the double play, while a dancer can be poised meaning light and graceful. Another word in this poem that relate to a double play and dancing is the term “pirouettes”, “Pirouettes / leaping, above the slide, to throw” (13-14). The player is described to be doing a pirouette in the double play while in the

process of throwing the ball to first base in the quickest way possible, while a dancer can also do a pirouette as a dance move. A phrase in this story that also makes a double play like a dance would be, “What / is too swift for deception / is final, lost, among the loosened figures” (19-21). This phrase can be related to both a double play and dancing with the word used to describe, the swiftness of both a dancer and a baseman and the loosened figures could describe the flowing
movement of a dancer and the runner.
2. Also in this poem there is the usage of similes to make comparisons throughout the poem. One example of this would be, “The pitcher winding / like a clock about to chime comes does with / the ball” (2-4). This example is indicating that the pitchers wind up while in motion is like the same as a clock about to strike an hour and it is getting ready to chime. Another simile in this poem would be, “Bounds like a vanishing string / over the green / to the shortstop magically” (6-8). This simile talks about the ball being hit like a string right to the shortstop