With the news this week of R.E.M’s final retirement, we present a song from The Baseball Project, a labor of love from R.E.M. member Peter Buck and session man Steve Wynn:
For more on The Baseball Project, visit their website.
The Bookkeepers Talk Baseball
by Jim Daniels
Betsy says a friend of hers
went to high school with Kirk Gibson
and that he was stuck up even then.
Debbie says Frank is taking her
to one of those things
where they play two games in one day.
What’s it called, a double bubble?
She makes a face: I can hardly stand one game
much less two.
Jack, the burly security guard says
it’s too damn boring. Everybody
standing around picking their asses.
I sit at my desk
flipping through accounts, pulling overdrafts.
My ass squirms in padded comfort
longing for the bleacher’s hard bench.
Arnold says he likes it better
on tv. Why go to the ballpark,
he asks, and deal with the traffic
and the crowds?
Better on tv?
Get yer red hots heah!
Coke! Iiiiiiice Cooooold Coke!
Crack of bat on ball. Smell
of stale cigars and spilled beer.
Seventh inning stretch.
Cold beer in the sun.
Cold beer in the sun.
I bang my seat
to start up a rally.
Jim Daniels is the Thomas Stockham Baker Professor of English at Carnegie Mellon University. His newest story collection, TRIGGER MAN: More Tales of the Motor City, is now available, and can be ordered from Amazon here.
Comerica Park, August 21, 2011
By Stuart Shea
The Cleveland Indians, fighting for life,
Rallied with bloopers and darts.
But Austin Jackson fired a BB
Into the Indians’ hearts.
They trailed by seven, but came back strong,
Those Tribesmen played their parts!
But Austin Jackson fired a BB
Into the Indians’ hearts.
The tying run is on third with one out–
On a fly ball, the runner starts!
But Austin Jackson fired a BB
Into the Indians’ hearts.
Inge’s “Picnic” opens in Toledo
By Stuart Shea
Brandon Inge will take a trip to Triple-A.
Where he will attempt to swing his slump away.
Fans can hope he hits the way he did five years before,
But there ain’t no getting over being 34.
New Words
by Jim Daniels
Saturday afternoon, alone in the living room
I crouched on the floor to watch
the Tigers lose another game.
Don Wert let a ball roll through
his legs and down the line in left.
You pimp, I cried
as the winning run scored.
My mother dropped laundry, grabbed my arm:
what’d you call him?
Pimp, I mumbled. I was nine
and about to learn a new word.
My mother turned off the tv.
A man sells a woman’s body.
I thought about that for a long time:
Don Wert missed a ground ball.
Don Wert did not sell women’s bodies.
Don Wert was not a good third baseman.
Don Wert was not a pimp.
It would be a couple more years
before I thought much about women’s bodies
before I etched a g for girls
into my dresser drawer knob I used
to dial in my dreams.
That night I pinned Don Wert’s baseball card
to my dartboard and took my pleasure.
Pimp, I whispered, pimp.
Jim Daniels is the Thomas Stockham Baker Professor of English at Carnegie Mellon University, where he has taught creative writing for 30 years.