by Gary Fincke
A press-box telegraph operator added his name and stats to one box score and was subsequently listed in six editions of the Baseball Encyclopedia.
In 1912, for St. Louis,
his name was in the box score.
He batted once — drew a walk,
was left stranded — but at the end
of the season that base on balls
fixed itself in records
as the career of Lou Proctor.
This Bible tells us so.
Six editions in all
where he’s near the one at-bat
of Earl Pruess, who stole
a base after his walk, who scored,
Unlike Lou Proctor, a run.
Holding this sixth edition,
we’re dreamy with lies, though
even here, there’s nothing
about birth or death, home town;
whether he batted right or left.
St. Louis Browns, we read,
American League; in the next
revision he’s gone. This text
is the one to love: we learn
the modesty of Lou Proctor,
the accomplishment of fiction.
Gary Fincke writes and teaches at Susquehanna University. Reprinted with permission of the author. Found in Line Drives: 100 Contemporary Baseball Poems (Southern Illinois University Press, 2002).