Consider The Grip emerges from an unlit corner of the gallery space. Framed by a ‘strike zone’ of red paint, a four-legged steel armature extends a four-inch diameter disc of cast pine rosin. The pine rosin acts as a screen for a small cylindrical projector mounted flush to the corner of the gallery. Sporadic sounds float from the projector’s internal speaker: a transatlantic narrator asks you to first consider the grip, followed by a series of comical whooshes that evoke dated sound effects. Occasionally a voice interjects with a Wow!

The content of the video cuts between several found footage sources. A baseball player in clearly dated uniform pantomimes throwing a baseball, zooming in and holding on his hand. As the footage cuts to other angles of his hand, the moon turns over the pine rosin screen, superimposed. A pitcher then stands alone on the mound, framed as if through binoculars. A hand appears, rinsing a baseball. The moon returns, turning from full to sliver, and a man attempts to hit a baseball suspended on a string, the ball continuously avoiding his wooden stick.

The ball enters a vat of milky liquid, then cuts to a tidal wave machine, a rubber ball bobbing along the surface of the water. The Earth now appears, a digital model of the moon orbiting around it—then Earth fades out in favor of a finger tapping on leather, a heavily zoomed-in surface of a baseball glove. A batter swings at a pitch that dodges his bat in a ridiculous and comical arc, followed by an incredulous Wow! 

The ball is removed from the milky liquid. The rubber ball bobs along on clear water. Another pitch comes to the same batter, following another unbelievable arc and releasing another unbelievable whoosh. The orbit returns as a man mutters that it must have been an optical illusion. The screen goes black, an announcer narrating the pitch: Wow! What kind of a ball was that?

A pitcher winds up to throw. He is perhaps too good-looking and his movements too exaggerated to be real, a pantomime. The camera angle is below him looking up, the field invisible. His opponent invisible. Behind him the night sky extends, punctuated only by a single stadium light. It is doing the work of the moon.

Before the pitcher can release, the footage cuts to the same player it started with, also winding up to throw. In slow motion, he is paused at the furthest extension of his arm. The footage then draws an arc that follows his arm as he throws the ball, yet another orbit.

Then everything starts again.