Preseason

by Tom LaGasse

The early New England spring practice,
with its unrelenting icy wind, has unified
the coach and team into dreaming about
easier, warmer days ahead.

During batting practice and playing first base,
my frozen breath rising to the sky like prayer,
I come to believe I would prefer to run
sprints than stand here for another minute.

Smoothing the infield dirt and blowing bubbles,
The small pink planets rising and collapsing
with a sharp pop, I assess our team’s fortunes
full of wintry candor:

The pitchers don’t throw hard enough,
and if my teammates can’t put the ball
in play against them, what chance will we
have against real pitching. But, if I am brutally

Honest, I am not much better. Surveying this
disaster of pitches in the dirt and a steady stream
of whiffs, the coach takes a few soft swings
with the fungo bat as if daydreaming

About his days as a player when he would have
drilled each tepid fastball over the fence.
Having seen enough or just plain tired
of being cold, he mercifully calls off practice.

For what seems like the first time, he doesn’t
have to encourage us to hustle. We gather
together, happy to huddle, grateful for the shared
body heat and an end to the day’s misery.

Standing just outside the cluster, the coach
pumps his fist as he lays out our goals – win
the conference and make the state tournament.
From there, anything can happen.

He reminds us that after our families and school,
baseball is the most important thing, and how
lucky we are to be part of this team. We fidget.
Not everyone is completely sure of this.

Like an effective preacher, he is believable
because I want to believe him.
I look around and think maybe I’ll be
a little better and most of the team

Was returning. If maybe Todd can throw
his curveball for strikes, and if maybe
that freshman is as good playing baseball
as he was in football and basketball. . .

We just might. If maybe we catch a few
breaks. If maybe the teams in our conference
underestimate us. If maybe we get
the opponents’ second or third best pitcher.

Just maybe if we play a little better,
more like that game last year
against our talent-laden city rival, who was
ranked third in the state. Whenever

they hit the ball hard, it was always
right at someone. Todd’s curveball was
working, and they threw their third best
pitcher, who was wild.

With the infield in and the bases loaded,
I blooped a ball over the third baseman’s head
that hit the chalk for a double. We held the lead
for an inning

Before it all collapsed. Their hard hit balls
found the gaps, and they took the lead.
They brought in their ace for the last two
innings. We were so close

That we talked about it for weeks in between
losses until the rest of the games and practices
were impediments to SATs, proms, graduations,
girlfriends, and finding a job for the summer.

This year, Todd couldn’t throw strikes, and that
freshman dazzled for three games but grew bored
and quit, already tired of losing. Even when the breaks
went our way, we failed to capitalize.

Sure, we won some, but we lost more. In between,
one teammate had his parents divorce, and
the coach’s sister died in a car crash. The memory
of that season is just a few stanzas, yet

It taught me about loss and to see those small
victories within them. A clutch hit. A 6-4-3
double play that squelched a rally. The post-
game hamburgers. Her smile. The kindness

of my parents. The greatest gift given to me
was the joy of sprinting onto the field and putting
the last loss behind me, hopeful for a fresh start.
That season was just

The beginning. Against my expectations there have
been some wins, but I am now riding a 40 plus year
losing streak. Baseball was practice to learn to be
defeated again and again, but now by greater things.*

*The last line is a play on Rilke’s poem “The Man Watching.”