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The Sacred Room: Yankee Stadium

by Ed Ryterband

My first Yankee game dad is taking us
I’m full of quiverings and pictures
About Mantle, Berra, Ford and
Suddenly we turn a corner in the Bronx
The giant stadium is looming over us
Vendors hawking banners, hats and badges
I’m drooling over all the souvenirs.

Dad tugs me through a turnstile
Then we join the flow streaming through our gate
One of many in the endless curving wall of Yankee Stadium
A hundred voices rumble echoing inside a tunnel,
Up a ramp and then another ramp
My skinny legs aching with impatience
Up another flight of steps
At last out into the open space
The playing field, the neatest grass and careful dirt and endless seats,
More people than I ever saw.
I gape at them, float above myself

A roar jolts me to attention
The Yankees poring from the dugout
A stream of heroes,
Spreading confident to their appointed places
Hats on hearts they face the flag
The anthem squawks
The game begins at last
I stand and sit and stand again
The plays move slow,
I savor them like ice cream.
Another wish fulfilled a boiled hotdog
Strangers hands pass it on to me
Draped in yellow mustard
I sniff it close, steaming still
My first bite tangy on my lips and tongue.
Washed down with coke and ice cubes for my chewing
Dessert: fresh peanuts
Shells collecting, covering my feet
My breath gets raw and stinky
So dad tells me
I don’t care
What I remember
Mantle hits a homer that never seems to end
The roar is deafening and wonderful,
Carries me into the sky
I hope the game will never end
It does
I sleep the whole way home.

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The Conflicts of Dick Allen (A Villanelle)

by Patrick Dubuque

We’re taught the game is played a certain way;
That men should bunt and strike out reverently
There really isn’t much else left to say.

In Little Rock, they welcomed him with spray
A sullen, stinging, whitewashed reverie.
We’re taught the game is played a certain way.

When one man swung his bat and struck him, they
Bestowed on him the culpability.
There really isn’t much else left to say.

He scratched October Second in the clay
Where local fans had once flung batteries
We’re taught the game, to play a certain way

And despite his prodigious, powerful display
Battling loneliness, rage, misery
There really isn’t much else left to say.

And so Dick Allen scowled as he played.
And so old men wrote their history.
We’re taught the game is played a certain way.
There really isn’t much else left to say.

Patrick Dubuque is the head honcho at the blog The Playful Utopia, which you all should start reading.

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Perfect Timing

by Joyce Heiser

Twenty-first birthday
and daughter’s a White Sox fan.
Booze might help that pain.

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First Game

by Doug Fahrendorff

Finally
The season,a month old
This weekend
My first trip to the park
Forgotten for an afternoon
Natural disasters
Political platitudes
A far too long winter
I’ll take a brat and a beer
Play ball !

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If I Ran the Team

by Hart Seely

If I ran the team, we’d be something to see.
We would win every game, what a team we would be …

I would sign all the stars, all the Mickeys and Willies.
No one would scorn me to go pitch for the Phillies.

And as for my sluggers, I’d get whom I please,
Maybe Albert Pujols, maybe David Ortiz.
(Via surgery, hey, they could hit Siamese!)

I’d gather key players to capture the pennant,
I’d trade bums to Frisco, obtain Tony Bennett.

My hitters would know that in every at-bat,
The umps were mine, too. (Let’s just leave it at that.)

We’d run on each pitch; we’d score runs in vast thickets,
Lindsay Lohan, on YouTube, would shoplift our tickets.

If I ran the team, we would need no excuses,
No critics would claim that our third baseman juices.

The rules for my troops would eliminate drama:
They’d eat only meals cooked by Michelle Obama.

To make sure they’re clean, nothing stronger than coffee,
I would hire that sexy ex-nurse for Qaddafi.

The Yankees? Of them, I would never be wary.
We would beat them as if they were Scranton/Wilkes-Barre.

The Red Sox? We’d crush them so hard that, God-willing,
They’d renounce their club, deny knowing Curt Schilling.

Each game would last only three hours or so,
And every ninth inning, we’d close it with Mo.

The nation, behind us, would form one great chorus,
At home games, Glenn Beck would sit next to George Soros.

The world would seek peace, ancient rivalries healed,
All warfare would cease when my team took the field.

And every poor family just struggling to eat,
They would watch all my games from their luxury suite!

For every home run, they’d see fireworks prancing.
(The wealthy Koch brothers would handle financing.)

Then, in from the bullpen, a grand float advancing:
Bristol Palin and Natalie Portman … both dancing!

If I ran the team – well – there would be some rubs:
I’d always feel guilty when beating the Cubs.

I’d want to play favorites, could not fire coaches,
Could not raze an old park, even if it had roaches.

I could not claim I’m broke, rattle cups in the street,
Or let tickets be sold for five thousand per seat.

My weaknesses, frankly, might bring us great loss,
They would call me the Fan. I could not be the Boss.

I could not be an owner, behind some closed door,
To them, it’s a business; to us, so much more.

So we sit here and hope, with each new season’s dream,
What a team we would have …

O, if I ran the team.

Hart Seely runs the essential Yankee blog, It Is High, It Is Far, It Is…caught. This poem originally appeared in Slate on Opening Day.