GOAT of the Booth

by Bill Cushing

Who’d’ve bet on this: That on the Second of August
in the Monkeypox year, instead of young Juan Soto,
the rising star wearing the mantle of Mickey,
we’d end the day focused on a 94-year-old
who always looked at home in a suit and tie
by the name of Scully? Vin made sports poetry;
his voice, a singularity of euphonic tones; his iconic prose
turned handheld Made-in-Japan radios into conduits
of prolific knowledge. He was able to share stories
that made men mythic—from Hammerin’ Hank Aaron
breaking the Babe’s record, his 715th hit to left, out of the park,
even football’s “Catch” from “Joe Cool” to Dwight Clark,
and he did it with wit, the way Shakespeare viewed it.
Now the Dodgers embark on the next stage of place;
they’ve lost their last connection to Brooklyn.
Everywhere, fans wept, feeling no disgrace.

A former New Yorker, Bill Cushing lives and writes in Los Angeles as a Dodger fan (by order of his wife!). His latest collection, Just a Little Cage of Bone (Southern Arizona Press), contains this and other sports-related poems.

 

Outside the Green Room

by Peter G. Mladinic

In passing, they have words
that ruffle feathers.
Yogi, Whitey, and Mickey don’t like
Tennessee’s looks,
his Chesterfield smoldering in a holder,
the carnation in his lapel.

Tennessee’s no fan of home plate,
the outfield,
the mound Whitey’s cleats kick dirt from
before the curve leaves his hand.
Will it be low and side,
a strike?

The three Yankees have been on the air.
Jack Parr
asked good questions.
Tennessee’s about to go on,
but here’s this scuffle
with players

who know nothing of his Blanche,
the always
of her famous line
about kindness. Go to blazes, he says.
They walk away, thinking him good
with words, not worth their time.

Peter Mladinic’s most recent book of poems, Voices from the Past, is available from Better Than Starbucks Publications. An animal rights advocate, he lives in Hobbs, New Mexico.

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.

 

Nothing to Hide Here

by James Finn Garner

This season’s new sheer slacks
Provide some things the game now lacks

A visible swing, a casual sashay
As sometimes seen in the NBA

New fans may be attracted!
Other players (no names, please) distracted

Gabby coaches will look like fools
When yapping about a player’s tools

And the evidence will add a new wrinkle
To discussion of anyone’s “launch angle.”

 

Kershawmandias

By James Finn Garner

With apologies to Percy Shelley

Reprinted from October 11, 2019.

I met a traveler in La-La Land,
Who said, “Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the Ravine . . . Near them, on the sand,
Half a ton of Gator-Ade cups lie,
And blue playoff towels now still,
And B-list actors hoping to flog their dreck
To Smoltz and the odious Buck,
And a mangled manager in a heap;
And on a whiteboard, these words appear:
‘My name is Kershawmandias, Ace of Aces;
Look on my season only, dammit, and despair!’
Nothing beside remains. Round the meltdown
Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level field stretches far away.”

For the story behind this photo, visit Atlas Obscura.