by Charles Ghigna

The slits of his eyes
hidden in shadows
beneath the bill of his cap,
he watches and waits
like a patient cat
to catch what comes
his way.

Crack!
and he pounces
upon the ball,
his hands flying
above the grass,
flinging his prey
on its way
across the diamond
into a double-play.

Charles Ghigna is the award-winning author of more than 40 volumes of poetry for children and adults, including Score: 50 Poems to Motivate and Inspire.  Find out more at his website, Father Goose.

.

Posted 7/2/2009

by Doug Fahrendorff

Last week
My brother returned
My copy of
The 1959 Mutual Baseball Almanac.
He had given me the book for my birthday
That year.
I paged through the articles
Describing how to play each position:
Roberts on pitching
Campanella catching
Musial the outfield
Statistics of yesterdays heroes
The book a mirror
Into a time long past
When baseball was still
Only a game.

.

Posted 7/1/2009

By Stuart Shea

I beg of you,
Please don’t say that in his last nine at-bats he’s hitting .222.

Please don’t mention a two-game win streak,
Or how many homers he hit in one week
Or other meaningless stats
Like his career record in four games against the Rays,
Or his ERA on Wednesdays.

Even those of us without degrees in statistics
Can tell when “conclusions” are not realistic.

Between announcers making mountains of data molehills
And old-time players saying on-base percentage isn’t very important
Because walks clog the bases
Or being patient is wimpy
And waiting for walks erodes a hitter’s skills,
It’s enough to make you want to SCREAM
And grab the remote

And turn off Jamie Campbell, Thom Brennaman, or Rory Markas
And ponder the end of the world in darkness.

.

Posted 6/30/2009