Dazzy Vance

by Michael Ceraolo

By the time I turned thirty,
I had had a couple cups of coffee in the bigs,
neither very successful,
and I wasn’t even consistent in the minors
It looked like I would be one of the countless
small-town ball-playing eccentrics
who never stuck in the big-time
Then, while playing in New Orleans in 1920,
I met a doctor who finally figured out
why my arm had been giving me trouble
off and on for several years;
he corrected it, though to this day
I can’t say what it was he did, exactly
I went from small-town eccentric
to colorful and dazzling major-league pitcher
(all big-city eccentrics are ‘colorful’)
You know all about the three men on third
(I was the one with the right to the base),
and we had club that fined those
who got caught breaking curfew
Hell, I taught the neighbor’s girl how to pitch;
you couldn’t get much more eccentric in those days