AL East 2023 Spring Training Forecast Haiku

by Stuart Shea

Baltimore Orioles
July: Orioles
Will refuse to migrate south,
Seeking fall colors.

Boston Red Sox
Yes, every franchise
Is an Evil Empire now.
Game is in its Fall.

New York Yankees
Can the potential
Of overpowering bats
Overpower their age?

Tampa Bay Rays
Lesson of the old:
It takes a genius chef to
Make soup out of straw.

Toronto Blue Jays
An exhaustive search!
Team’s new radio guy is
The TV guy’s son.

 

Mantle and Mays

by Peter G. Mladinic

If I could touch what touches everything,
if I could talk to the animals, if I could
remember the Bronx of 1953 as well as you,
the Polo Grounds would be my memory, one
we shared, you in stands, the Say Hey Kid
in center, across the river, in center Mick.
His glove like Willie’s catches the high pop.

I think of base paths, a batter’s box, a dash
third to home. Mantle for speed, power,
Mays for all-around everything in the Polo
Grounds, you remember sitting in stands
and I vaguely seeing Mantle but more so
an old man’s eye bloodied by a line drive
hit off, say, Brooks Robinson’s bat that day

the Yanks hosted Baltimore, Mick figurine-
small way out in center, but step into
the batter’s box, cousin, as the Mick did
and the Say Hey Kid, to touch the width
and breadth of what touches all, everything.
New York at Mantle’s fingertips, New York
in the pocket of the glove of a kid, Willie

Mays from cotton-field Alabama, Mick
from dustbowl Oklahoma, and you from
greenery of Dumont, the country it was
then, to ride in a Buick across the GW,
step into shadows tall brick walls, courtyard
guarded by stone lions and gargoyles
on ledges and with strength of your eight

year old arms open thick, black-glossed
double doors, high on a hill. So many
cobbled hills, down to the wide Concourse,
sprawl of shops on Fordham, canopies,
the RKO marquee, all the while brick walls
burnished red, brown, light tan of five-,
six-story buildings. The hand sets a potted

begonia on a fire escape, no more than dust
today, that in ‘53 when baseball was king,
joined its other hand to clap a storm
for Mays or Mantle. Look at the tiny curls
of blond hairs on his powerful forearm!
A child might have said to himself to herself,
I love Mickey Mantle, or Willie knocks it

out of the park for me, every time. To come
from whatever he was seeing, cotton under
a big sky, Stars Fell on Alabama, uphill,
and in broad light feel something like God’s
hand (if I could touch what touches
everything) on his shoulder and hear a voice
say Willie, or Mick, this is yours, all of it.

Peter Mladinic’s fifth book of poems, Voices from the Past, is due out in November 2023 from Better Than Starbucks Publications. An animal rights advocate, he lives in Hobbs, New Mexico.

 

Oriole Wings Clipped

by Rajesh C. Oza

In memory of Louise Glück, 1943-2023, winner of the 2020 Nobel Prize in Literature

When Louise was a young-adult,
The Orioles were high-flying.

Dave, Jim, and Mike were 20-game winners;
Brooks, Davey, and Paul were Gold-Glovers;
Boog and Frank slugged homers to grateful fans;
Earl shoved dirt on umpires’ cleats.

Days before Louise died,
The Orange Birds were swept.
Balty fans wept salty tears of sadness:

“We were made fools of.
And the scent of mock orange
drifts through the window.
How can I rest?
How can I be content
when there is still
that odor in the world?”

(Referencing Glück’s “Mock Orange”)

Chesapeaked Too Soon

by James Finn Garner

The kids from Charm City
Didn’t play so pretty
In their short series with the Rangers
But these orange sprats–
Good defense, strong bats–
To the postseason will not be strangers.

They play the game right,
Alert but not tight,
And act like a team, not selfish.
They outpaced the Rays
And will not go away,
Not unlike a batch of bad shellfish.

End of Season at the MLB Tavern

by Stephen Jones

I was waiting at the bar for a playoff date
And looked at my watch. It’s getting late.
Then I heard the emphatic bartender,
With his fist pump, mask, and chest protector,
Announce to the lingering, glassy patrons:
“It’s last call. Closing time,” he intones
As he wipes the bar, satisfied with himself,
And begins putting teams on the postseason shelf —
Brands like Atlanta, Los Angeles, Baltimore, Tampa
(and just maybe Seattle, Chicago, or Philadelphia) —
And as he does, he continues to drone:
“It’s hotel-motel time if you can’t go home,
But right now, you can’t stay here —
And hey, better luck when we open next year.”

Pictured is Baseball Bill Holdforth, bartender and rabid DC baseball fan. For the story of how he worked to keep owner Bob Short out of the US Senate, check out this story from washingtonbaseballhistory.com.