Reviving the Art of Baseball Doggerel
All about his team
The Sandman keeps stats second
He pitches to win
Fans may make raucous noise
But on the mound he’s quiet grace
Humble with history
Genuine in his humility
His smile tells it all as he tips his hat
Sharing the moment with thousands
Mariano Rivera
What I remember is large
some of it confused
the sadness the heroes
some still unnamed
but I zero in on baseball
not to forget but because
like a constant outside history
baseball resonates for me
the heroics of play on a field
the belief that a game is sometimes
better than grief
a comfort & something to point to
An Oklahoma flash
Out of “shucks” and a beer can
He swung for pleasure
One moment The Yankees set a record
three grand slams in one game
The next they fumble like dead wood
decidedly not the same
In golf drive for show
. . . but putt for dough
In baseball the axiom is the same
more often pitching wins the game
As playoffs loom strong arm Yankee batting
alone will not guaranty Yankee winning
Mantle ran so hard, they said,
he tore his legs to pieces.
What is this but spirit?
52 homers in ’56, the triple crown.
I was a high school junior, batting
fourth behind him in a dream.
I prayed for him to quit, before
his lifetime dropped below .300.
But he didn’t, and it did.
He makes Brylcreem commercials now,
models with opened mouths draped around him
as they never were in Commerce, Oklahoma,
where the sandy-haired, wide-shouldered boy
stood up against his barn,
lefty for an hour (Ruth, Gehrig),
then righty (DiMaggio),
as his father winged them in,
and the future blew toward him,
now a fastball, now a slow
curve hanging
like a model’s smile
William Heyen’s poems have appeared in over 100 periodicals. He taught English literature and creative writing at the State University of New York College at Brockport for over 30 years. He recently performed “Mantle” at the Chautauqua Festival.