Betsy says a friend of hers
went to high school with Kirk Gibson
and that he was stuck up even then.

Debbie says Frank is taking her
to one of those things
where they play two games in one day.
What’s it called, a double bubble?
She makes a face: I can hardly stand one game
much less two.

Jack, the burly security guard says
it’s too damn boring. Everybody
standing around picking their asses.

I sit at my desk
flipping through accounts, pulling overdrafts.
My ass squirms in padded comfort
longing for the bleacher’s hard bench.

Arnold says he likes it better
on tv. Why go to the ballpark,
he asks, and deal with the traffic
and the crowds?

Better on tv?
Get yer red hots heah!
Coke! Iiiiiiice Cooooold Coke!
Crack of bat on ball. Smell
of stale cigars and spilled beer.
Seventh inning stretch.
Cold beer in the sun.

Cold beer in the sun.
I bang my seat
to start up a rally.

Jim Daniels is the Thomas Stockham Baker Professor of English at Carnegie Mellon University.  His newest story collection, TRIGGER MAN: More Tales of the Motor City, is now available, and can be ordered from Amazon here.

The Sox are our team, says the Bahd,
Plus the students who haunt Hahvahd Yahd.
Just enjoy if you wish
This great summery dish.
By autumn, you know, we’ll get scrod.

Baseball is for all, regardless of religion or race,
And it’s the Babe blasting one into outer space.

It’s the banker sitting next to the guy without a job,
And it’s the base-stealing exploits of Tyrus R. Cobb.

It’s the vendors hawking scorecards, peanuts and ale,
And it’s Landis, the Czar, with his chin on the rail.

It’s pilots like Huggins, Mack, and Old Case,
And it’s a boner by Merkle, who skipped second base.

It’s Billy Sunday, from sinner to saint,
And it’s Willie Keeler, who hit where they ain’t.

It’s writers like Lardner, Rice and Runyon,
And its Wagner at bat, resembling Paul Bunyan,

It’s a crestfallen guy called Shoeless Joe,
And it’s the kid who pleaded, “Say it ain’t so.”

It’s opening day with the President in the park,
And it’s a homer by Hartnett, hit in the dark.

It’s nicknames like Dizzy and Dazzy, Pee Wee and Pants,
And it’s a double play by Tinker to Evers to Chance.

It’s the ornery cussing of Muggsy McGraw,
And the quiet temperance of Vernon Law.

It’s the pursuit of an asterisk by Mantle and Maris,
And it’s the Mats’ Boy Wonders, Cronin and Harris.

It’s the Giants Mathewson, who seldom would lose,
And it’s Taylor Spink and The Sporting News.

It’s the prayers for a pennant by a Brooklyn parson,
And a Series no-hitter by a guy named Larsen.

It’s the girl in the bleachers acquiring a tan,
And the hula-wiggle stance of Stan the Man.

It’s the training camps and the coming of spring,
And it’s Mr. Roberts, the first Robin of fling.

It’s the aroma of hot dogs, plain or kosher,
And it’s umpire-baiting by Leo Durocher.

It’s the blast by Thomson, with its thrills galore,
And it’s the 26-inning duel of Oeschger and Cadore.

It’s the pennant winner and the team in the cellar,
And it’s the blazing fastball of Bobby Feller.

It’s Hornsby, the Rajah, so brazen and bold,
And it’s Billy Martin, still knocking `em cold.

It’s Doubleday, Cooperstown and the Hall of Fame,
And it’s the band playing “Take Me Out To The Ball Game.”

It’s the little leaguer and the kids at stick ball,
It’s rain checks, bubblegum cards, and most of all…

It’s America. Yes, BASEBALL IS AMERICA.

To the bleachers a finger was pointed
With a homer the Babe was anointed
.    The fat patron saint
.    of a lack of restraint
His appetite came double-jointed.

.

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.

There are no ties in baseball,
there is no ticking clock.
The game could continue forever.

One night in Rhode Island
the Rochester Red Wings
face the Pawtucket Red Sox.

A fierce wind invades the stadium,
numbing fans and players alike.
Make this one quick, everyone hopes.

Lights generate no warmth.
Fans applaud, the game begins.
Six scoreless innings, then Rochester drives in

a single run. Bottom of the ninth,
the PawSox also score a single run.
There are no ties in baseball,

there is no ticking clock. There are only
more chances. The extra innings creep
like icicles: tenth, eleventh, twelfth arrive

and depart with nothing but snowballs
to show: big, round, cold zeros.
At the end of eighteen innings

the score remains one-one.
The temperature drops to bathyspheric depths.
Players light bonfires in trash barrels,

burning broken bats as fuel. Fans go home
to furnaces that blast hot air.
Players long to go home, too, but first

one of them must cross home.
The stadium sells out of food. Clubhouse men
deploy into the frigid night and return

with chow the players bolt down. The game
goes on — four hours . . . five . . . six.
There are no ties in baseball,

there is no ticking clock.
And then, top of the twenty-first inning —
Rochester scores a second run.

Hallelujah!
The game will, at long last, be over.
Completed.

No. Not meant to be.
Pawtucket also scores a second run
in the bottom of the twenty-first. Game tied,

two-two. The contest will continue. Players
know it, the remaining fans know it. This is baseball,
not some nickel-and-dime tick-tock diversion.

The managers think otherwise:
they want the game called and resumed
later, preferably on a warm

summer day. They appeal to the umpire,
who pages through his book coldly
and finds . . . no applicable rule.

“Play ball!” he huffs, his breath a speech
bubble in the frosty air. And so players stumble
through the motions they’ve been making since

they were six years old. Half-asleep, half-frozen,
they are all good enough to play at the Triple-A level,
and definitely good enough to keep one another from scoring.

By the end of the twenty-seventh inning,
Rochester and Pawtucket have played
three full baseball games. Again the managers

appeal to the umpire, but the blue man stands
by his earlier decision. There are no ties
in baseball, there is no ticking clock.

The fans: a score of them remain. (A score!
If only somebody would score!) Nobody goes out
to scrounge up food for the fans, who dare not

burn stadium seats to stay warm.
Why do they stay? Do they know
they are witnessing baseball history?

History, schmistory, the managers don’t care —
they understand about ticking clocks
and no ties, they just think somebody

has to show some common sense.
And so, calling it common sense,
somebody calls the league president

at three o’clock in the morning.
After he is awake enough to understand
the situation, the league president grants

permission to call the game. And so,
at the end of the thirty-second inning,
the game is called, to be resumed another day.

Before the fans can unstiffen enough to leave,
the Pawtucket organization awards a free season pass
to each of these true blue-from-the-cold lovers of the game,

The players stand in hot showers to thaw,
then dress to go home, stepping out
into the early morning sunrise.

Two months later, the Red Wings return
and the game resumes, the score still two-two.
Rochester fails to score,

but Pawtucket does not, driving a run
across the plate in the bottom of the thirty-third inning.
The longest game in baseball history

is finally completed.
There are no ties in baseball.
There is no ticking clock.

Sure ’nuff baseball starts
fan-world balanced on
a new season
by game beer brats

The season-to-be first
pumped by fist
then applause dismays
& maybe applause again

The moments/the pitches
the at-bats & skewed recoveries
brilliant plays or errors by inches
or a bunt called fair

Anticipate whatever
moments of baseball & history long
a long time is April-October
& a baseball song

Once you’ve been saved
by the Church of
St. Baseball—the
game is All: the
Hot Dog! grill’s the
altar; bases
are stations of
the moss; the pope’s
on second; cheers
are chants; every
hit aches for the
sky; every word
is—Say Hey!—a
prayer for home.

Susanna wrote and narrated this poem for “Cobb Field: A Day at the Ballpark,” Craig Lindvahl’s documentary, for which she was nominated for an Emmy.  The film can frequently be seen on the MLB Network.  Susanna has been published numerous times in Spitball and read frequently at the Yoga Berra Museum at Montclair State University in New Jersey.

Baseball baseball . . .
& who cares for wieners?

Mustard relish & steamed bun
In hand like on-going history

A snap! when bit
As play is done

(Best part of the “dog”)

– Boston, MA, 1948

The Chilean secret police
searched everywhere
for the poet Neruda: in the dark shafts
of mines, in the boxcars of railroad yards,
in the sewers of Santiago.
The government intended to confiscate his mouth
and extract the poems one by one like bad teeth.
But the mines and boxcars and sewers were empty.

I know where he was. Neruda was at Fenway Park,
burly and bearded in a flat black cap, hidden
in the kaleidoscope of the bleachers.
He sat quietly, chomping a hot dog
when Ted Williams walked to the crest of the diamond,
slender as my father remembers him,
squinting at the pitcher, bat swaying in a memory of trees.

The stroke was a pendulum of long muscle and wood,
Ted’s face tilted up, the home run
zooming into the right field grandstand.
Then the crowd stood together, cheering
for this blasphemer of newsprint, the heretic
who would not tip his cap as he toed home plate
or grin like a war hero at the sportswriters
surrounding his locker for a quote.

The fugitive poet could not keep silent,
standing on his seat to declaim the ode
erupted in crowd-bewildering Spanish from his mouth:

Praise Ted Williams, raising his sword
cut from the ash tree, the ball
a white planet glowing in the atmosphere
of the right field grandstand!

Praise the Wall rising
like a great green wave
from the green sea of the outfield!

Praise the hot dog, pink meat,
pork snouts, sawdust, mouse feces,
human hair, plugging our intestines,
yet baptized joyfully with mustard!

Praise the wobbling drunk, seasick beer
in hand, staring at the number on his ticket,
demanding my seat!

Everyone gawked at the man standing
on his seat, bellowing poetry in Spanish.
Anonymous no longer,
Neruda saw the Chilean secret police
as they scrambled through the bleachers,
pointing and shouting, so the poet
jumped a guardrail to disappear
through a Fenway tunnel,
the black cap flying from his head
and spinning into center field.

This is true. I was there at Fenway
on August 7, 1948, even if I was born
exactly nine years later
when my father
almost named me Theodore.

Martin Espada teaches at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. He has published 17 books as a poet, editor, essayist and translator.  You can read more about his work at his website.