The Tormentor of Yankee Stadium (06/29/2014)

by Stephen Jones

David Ortiz saves his best for history –
The long, fierce Red Sox/Yankee rivalry –
And always the nemesis of Pinstripes,
He did it again just last Sunday night.

In the third he smacked a 3-run homer
And grinned It’s good to be a power hitter
As he beat up Chase Whitley, rookie pitcher,
With a detonation to Yankee right-center.

He’s a hulking figure at the plate,
But he and Cooperstown have a date.
Is Ortiz Marvel’s newest Avenger?
On newsstands now . . . The Pinstripe Tormentor.

 

Dream of a Baseball Star

by Gregory Corso

I dreamed Ted Williams
leaning at night
against the Eiffel Tower, weeping.

He was in uniform
and his bat lay at his feet
– knotted and twiggy.

“Randall Jarrell says you’re a poet!” I cried.
“So do I! I say you’re a poet!”

He picked up his bat with blown hands;
stood there astraddle as he would in the batter’s box,
and laughed! flinging his schoolboy wrath
toward some invisible pitcher’s mound
– waiting the pitch all the way from heaven.

It came; hundreds came! all afire!
He swung and swung and swung and connected not one
sinker curve hook or right-down-the middle.
A hundred strikes!
The umpire dressed in strange attire
thundered his judgment: YOU’RE OUT!
And the phantom crowd’s horrific boo
dispersed the gargoyles from Notre Dame.

And I screamed in my dream:
God! throw thy merciful pitch!
Herald the crack of bats!
Hooray the sharp liner to left!
Yea the double, the triple!
Hosannah the home run!

 

Don Zimmer, RIP

by James Finn Garner

Old Zim
When I think of him
Looks like chaw and tar
And a grand har-har
To those squares
Who don’t care
About baseball
And giving your all
For what you love.
And when push comes to shove,
Had Martinez been 70,
Zim would’ve pounded him plenty.

You’re our kind of guy.
Goodbye, Popeye.

 

The Good Old Days

by Dick Flavin

Whenever I need a good cry
I stop and think
Of when the Sox were on the rocks
And how they’d stink
I’d take some glee from misery
I confess
And what is worse, I miss the curse
And the stress

I see Billy Buckner bending
And all our hopes are ending.
The ball is rolling through
His legs before our gaze.
And that horrible truth
When we learned they sold Ruth
Those were the good old days.

I see Bucky Dent of all guys
The weakest of the small guys
That cheesy little homer
Floating through the haze.
And my heart is at risk
They forgot to sign Fisk
Those were the good old days.

I know it’s not pretty to wallow in pity
There’s nothing of value one can gain.
Then all of a sudden I see Don Buddin
And again I’m awash in wondrous pain
(Is everybody crying?)

I see Grady Little snoring
While Yankee runs are scoring
Pedro’s out of gas
But in the game he stays
And there’s Slaughter’s mad dash
Another late season crash
Those were the good old days

Oh I’d complain and I’d beef
But I miss the grief
Of those good old days.

Boston broadcaster Dick Flavin is considered the Poet Laureate of the Great Fenway Park Writers Series.

The American League East (So Far)

by Stephen Jones

The American League East
Is a fratricidal beast.
It seems no team alone
Is sure to take the throne.
Instead, each league brother
Goes after one another.

I may be no betting man,
But I can see a future-scan:
It may just end up being,
After all the smoke is clearing,
That on a September morning
It will be the “last team standing.”