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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  a link to his artwork. Thanks for visiting.