An Eye For The Essence Of The Game

The creator of this photographic portfolio has undertaken a poet's task. By reshooting still photos and television pictures of baseball through sheets of textured acrylic and glass, he has stripped the images of all but the essence of their action. At left, a pitcher on a TV screen loses his personal and team identity when refracted through pebbled shower glass, and his windup becomes The Windup. At right, a photo shot through translucent plastic turns the moment of impact between bat and ball into a burst of light.

From close up many of these photographs would appear to be abstractions of light and color, but at a greater distance they become the familiar vignettes of baseball—such scenes as a pitcher taking a sign, a runner leading off base, a full speed, one-handed catch in the outfield.

Photographer Gove grew up in pre-Giants San Francisco, when keeping up with major league baseball was an exercise in imagination. His passion for the sport was nurtured by re-creations on the radio, the crack of unseen bats in stadiums of the mind.