Read ‘O’ Slider Slide,’ the poem White Sox ace Dylan Cease wrote about his slider

Dylan Cease could win the Cy Young Award, for excellence in pitching.

Is an award for excellence in baseball-themed poetry on the horizon, as well?

As he’s racked up strikeouts and kept runs off the scoreboard, Cease has been working on plenty of other ventures. That he’s helping his dad produce honey via backyard beekeeping in Georgia has been a season-long talking point, and he’s well known for his love of disc golf.

But he’s also exploring his artistic side, dabbling in poetry.

In the “very sexy mustache” video the White Sox posted after the team’s trip to San Francisco, Cease revealed he wrote a poem about his slider – supposedly it came to him after listening to “piano music” in the shower – and that he was waiting for the right time to release it, even though his teammates had already received a sneak peek.

Over the weekend, his teammates started sporting impossible-to-ignore T-shirts with the poem plastered on the back, and they’ve worn them every day since.

And now you, too, can read Cease’s poem.

“O’ Slider Slide” by Dylan Cease

O’ slider slide o’ slider slide

Past the batsman I send my slider to hide

O’ slider slide o’ slider slide

Past the batsmen I send that round cowhide

O’ slider slide o’ slider slide

A fortune staked on you lest I over stride

O’ slider slide o’ slider slide

In the strike zone indeed a win is implied

O’ slider slide o’ slider slide

The humans can’t believe my 3000rpm and fastball ride

O’ slider slide o’ slider slide

Your execution can earn you a bride

O’ slider slide o’ slider slide

Even the back up tried

O’ slider slide o’ slider slide

To the back foot of a lefty … check swing and the ump is wrong

That ending is especially fantastic.

Here it is in its most popular form, the ever-loved artistic medium of the clubhouse T-shirt (notice the trademark mustache hiding in the title of the poem):

Cease’s slider certainly has been something worthy of artistic inspiration. It’s currently ranked as the best pitch in baseball, per the run value statistic. Better even than the cutter of reigning NL Cy Young winner Corbin Burnes and almost twice as menacing as the slider spun by reigning AL MVP Shohei Ohtani.

We’ll get a preview of whether it’s good enough to win him this year’s edition of the AL Cy Young when he goes head-to-head with the Junior Circuit’s other leading candidate for the award, Justin Verlander, in Tuesday’s game against the Astros on the South Side.

This season has been Cease’s breakout campaign, and he’s been one of the sport’s top arms.

Maybe it’ll be his big break in the world of poetry, too.