by Tom LaGasse
All baseball season
night after night
I listen
And here’s the pitch . . .
Who wins or loses
no longer matters
despite what
The most rabid
fans and sports
radio hosts tell me.
I try to pay
attention to
the spaciousness:
The way
each moment opens
green
Like the smell
of freshly
mowed grass.
Often, I get lost
remembering who taught
me how to love the game:
Backyard catch
sandlot games
grandfather, father
uncles, cousins,
friends, teammates.
We know the best
hitters fail more often
than they succeed
At their craft.
I, as a listener,
am no different
On deck is . . .
I look ahead to
warmer weather,
an upcoming game
When I will be
on vacation,
the World Series.
The crack of the bat
always returns me
to the beauty
Of players in motion,
of fans living and dying,
and the open field of green.
Tom lives in Connecticut, the battleground state split between Red Sox and Yankee fans. His baseball short stories have appeared in The Feminine Collective and Turnstyle: The SABR Journal of Baseball Arts.