The Feast of Snyder the Turbulent

The Feast of Cory the Snyder

Today we raise a glass to the august glory that is Cory Snyder, in this, the most recent of our feast-day celebrations.

Life: It is futile to seek the essence of Cory Snyder from his Wikipedia article, a handful of sparse, high-school-english-paper paragraphs scattered before him like so many crumbs.  Nowhere does it mention the forearms, the lateral incisors, the dazed optimism.  Nor does it mention that final, willful gesture in the ninth inning of the 1984 Olympic gold medal game, when he hit a home run and proceeded to urinate on the plate in single-minded, feral defiance.  Clearly, philosophers have long skirted the questions that the existence of Cory Snyder has pressed upon the human condition.  This display of intellectual cowardice from our nation is, naturally, quite troubling.

 

Spiritual Exercise: Select a tranquil outdoor area suitable for meditation.  Seek the twittering of starlings if at all possible.  Then, the moment before your superficial introspection descends into an unconscious calculation of the groceries you will need to buy, tense every single muscle in your body and hold it as long as you can.  As you do, consider Hawthorne’s rejection of transcendentalism, his belief that it is Nature herself who injects the bad hop into every ground ball.  In such a world, what is the sane reaction?  Is it to struggle against the natural forces bent on your destruction, or to allow Heraclitus’ river to sweep you where it will?

A Prayer for Cory Snyder

Cory Snyder!
Any glance at your 1987 Topps Card
Is immediately drawn to the gaudy glitter
Of the golden bowl that was
Your glory, and your education.

Your flaws did not stay hidden long.
In the blurry shadow-world above,
Your posture is a painfully symbolic gesture
Of the game and the world
That was already tailing down and away.

The moment you appeared
You negated our preconceived notions
As to the finite vectors accorded to time, and hair.
Your golden greatness swirled
And eddied about your shoulders like a mantle.

Your magnanimity was evident at the plate
Where the shortstops, in their reedy voices,
Entreated you to “swing, batter,”
Swing, and swing you did.
You swung at everything you could.