(Suggested by post-game broadcasts)
Fanaticism? No. Writing is exciting and baseball is like writing. You can never tell with either how it will go or what you will do; generating excitement— a fever in the victim— pitcher, catcher, fielder, batter. Victim in what category? Owlman watching from the press box? To whom does it apply? Who is excited? Might it be I? It’s a pitcher’s battle all the way—a duel— a catcher’s, as, with cruel puma paw, Elston Howard lumbers lightly back to plate. (His spring de-winged a bat swing.) They have that killer instinct; yet Elston—whose catching arm has hurt them all with the bat— when questioned, says, unenviously, “I’m very satisfied. We won.” Shorn of the batting crown, says, “We”; robbed by a technicality. When three players on a side play three positions and modify conditions, the massive run need not be everything. “Going, going . . . ” Is it? Roger Maris has it, running fast. You will never see a finer catch. Well . . . “Mickey, leaping like the devil”—why gild it, although deer sounds better— snares what was speeding towards its treetop nest, one-handing the souvenir-to-be meant to be caught by you or me. Assign Yogi Berra to Cape Canaveral; he could handle any missile. He is no feather. “Strike! . . . Strike two!” Fouled back. A blur. It’s gone. You would infer that the bat had eyes. He put the wood to that one. Praised, Skowron says, “Thanks, Mel. I think I helped a little bit.” All business, each, and modesty. Blanchard, Richardson, Kubek, Boyer. In that galaxy of nine, say which won the pennant? Each. It was he. Those two magnificent saves from the knee-throws by Boyer, finesses in twos— like Whitey's three kinds of pitch and pre- diagnosis with pick-off psychosis. Pitching is a large subject. Your arm, too true at first, can learn to catch your corners—even trouble Mickey Mantle. (“Grazed a Yankee! My baby pitcher, Montejo!” With some pedagogy, you’ll be tough, premature prodigy.) They crowd him and curve him and aim for the knees. Trying indeed! The secret implying: “I can stand here, bat held steady.” One may suit him; none has hit him. Imponderables smite him. Muscle kinks, infections, spike wounds require food, rest, respite from ruffians. (Drat it! Celebrity costs privacy!) Cow’s milk, “tiger’s milk,” soy milk, carrot juice, brewer’s yeast (high-potency— concentrates presage victory sped by Luis Arroyo, Hector Lopez— deadly in a pinch. And “Yes, it’s work; I want you to bear down, but enjoy it while you’re doing it.” Mr. Houk and Mr. Sain, if you have a rummage sale, don’t sell Roland Sheldon or Tom Tresh. Studded with stars in belt and crown, the Stadium is an adastrium. O flashing Orion, your stars are muscled like the lion.
From The Complete Poems of Marianne Moore. Copyright © 1961 Marianne Moore, © renewed 1989 by Lawrence E. Brinn and Louise Crane, executors of the Estate of Marianne Moore.
Five then four for a ninety-second penalty
then five again down at the far end
then a hurricane of green and white
hurling this way with a pass a pivot
then what seems a pas de deux then
another pass as the puck whacks against
the see-through plastic barrier and there’s
the hawkeyed Griff modest (as always)
and steady as a chess knight skating back
back then floating sideways as the puck wheels
faster than my eyes can follow and now
he’s got it and he’s heading for their goalie
a kid so big so geared up with his blocker
in his right and his trapper in his left suited up
in his Hannibal Lector death-white face mask
so that you have to wonder how a puck slapped
even at a hundred miles an hour could ever
get past that dragon at the gate as one then two
blue blurs come closing in on him intent only
on stealing back that speck that priceless puck
at any cost as now the Griffer shifts then passes
then retrieves the spheroid thing as now
he feints off to the left then slams it there
yes there right there into the corner that
too late squeezes shut and bam!
like that it’s 1-0 and someone’s father
is banging on the plastic barrier as shouts
go roaring up from the metal bleachers
and Griffer’s grandpa’s going Woo hoo! before
he remembers to compose himself once more.
And with that the game goes on again
and soon the players morph into other kids
who look like Griff but with different strides
and numbers on their back as some skate out
though the team door and some skate in.
And soon the kids on the other team
do their quid pro quo to even up the score.
And so it goes, week in week out the winter
through, a sport you never thought to follow
until your grandson took it up, practicing it
even in his living room, where his parents
have let him set up a net on the ancient
wooden farmhouse floor into which he slams
the puck again and then again hour after hour
while good old Huddie shakes himself
then shuffles off into the other room, a game
where Griffin seems to know all the stats
and teams and players and even dreams about
in a world where grim opponents keep coming
for him, where he must somehow face
the white-masked monster and send the missive
he’s been charged with wheeling through.
From Ordinary Time (Slant Books, 2020) by Paul Mariani. Copyright © 2020 by Paul Mariani. Used with the permission of the author.
America under the lights
at Harry Ball Field. A fog rolls in
as the flag crinkles and drapes
around a metal pole.
My son reaches into the sky
to pull down a game-ender,
a bomb caught in his leather mitt.
He gives the ball a flat squeeze
then tosses it in from the outfield,
tugs his cap over a tussle of hair
before joining the team—
all high-fives and handshakes
as the Major boys line up
at home plate. They are learning
how to be good sports,
their dugout cheers interrupted only
by sunflower seed shells spat
along the first base line.
The coach prattles on
about the importance of stealing
bases and productive outs
while a teammate cracks a joke
about my son’s ‘fro, then says,
But you’re not really black…
to which there’s laughter,
to which he smiles but says nothing,
which says something about
what goes unsaid, what starts
with a harmless joke, routine
as a can of corn.
But this is little league.
This is where he learns
how to field a position,
how to play a bloop in the gap—
that impossible space where
he’ll always play defense.
Copyright © 2015 January Gill O'Neil. Originally published in the Winter 2015 issue of Prairie Schooner. Used with permission of Prairie Schooner.
To this day I still remember sitting
on my abuelo’s lap watching the Yankees hit,
then run, a soft wind rounding the bases
every foot tap to the white pad gentle as a kiss.
How I loved those afternoons languidly
eating jamón sandwiches & drinking root beer.
Later, when I knew something about the blue collar
man—my father who worked with his hands & tumbled
into the house exhausted like heat in a rainstorm—
I became a Mets fan.
Something about their unclean faces
their mustaches seemed rough
to the touch. They had names like Wally & Dyskstra.
I was certain I would marry a man just like them
that is until Sammy Sosa came along
with his smile a reptile that only knew about lying in the sun.
His arms were cannons and his skin burnt cinnamon
that glistened in my dreams.
Everyone said he was not beautiful.
Out on the streets where the men set up shop playing dominoes
I’d hear them say between the yelling of capicu
“como juega, pero feo como el diablo.”
I knew nothing of my history
of the infighting on an island on which one side swore
it was only one thing: pallid, pristine. & I didn’t know
that Sammy carried this history like a tattoo.
That he wished everyday to be white.
It is a perfect game this race war, it is everywhere, living
in the American bayou as much as
the Dominican dirt roads.
It makes a man do something to his skin that seems unholy.
It makes that same man change eye color like a soft
summer dress slipped on slowly.
It makes a grandmother ask her granddaughter
if she’s suffering
from something feverish
because that could be the only excuse why
her hair has not been straightened
like a ballerina’s back dyed the color of wild
daffodils growing in an outfield.
Sammy hit 66 home runs one year
& that was still not enough
to make him feel handsome
or worthy of that blackness that I believe a gift
even today while black churches burn & black bodies
disappear from one day to the next the same as old
pennies.
I think of him often barely remember what he looked like
but I can recall his hunched shoulders in the
dugout his perfect swing
& how maybe he spit out something black
from his mouth after
every single strike—
Copyright © 2015 Yesenia Montilla. Originally published in the Winter 2015 issue of Prairie Schooner. Used with permission of Prairie Schooner.