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Yardbirds, Beak to Beak

By Stephen Jones

Smack! and See ya – it’s outta here!
There’ve been a lot of home runs this year…
I listened to two sun-bleached gentry
Sitting on thrones in nosebleed country:

“Anyone hear of Long-ball Joe?
He’s a hitter!”

“Yeah, I know.”

The sneer was unmistakable,
But Speaker One was still unflappable:
“Oh yeah? Whatta’bout Serve’em-up Slim?
I guess, maybe, you’ve heard of him…
The way they hit … it’s box-office money.”

“Yeah, sure … like video-game currency.
And ev’rybody just oohs the velo
And wishes they could launch just so.”

Then I heard: Beer! Beer! Getcha beer!
“Hey beer! Two beers … over here!”

(Pause)

First, sighs of satisfaction;
Then Sneer launched into criticism:

“Anyway, it don’t matter. Somethin’s wrong
With the ball. It just shouldn’t travel that long.
And now I hear that mebbe it’s the seams
Or the way core’s now wrapped in string…

“You tell me. What’s behind the curtain?
I dunno. But one thing seems certain:
Now the stadium’s a home-run theme park.
With gaudy numbers. And we’re all a part.”

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Oblique and Strained Metaphors

by James Finn Garner

Hey Cubs bullpen: How’s it feel
To deliver everyone’s highlight reels?

With the gusts of your blown saves,
The ocean’s seeing tidal waves

The Midwest’s golden fields of wheat
Lay snapped and broken ‘neath our feet

Phone lines and electric towers
Are in disrepair for hours

The country’s airplanes have been grounded
Generator turbines pounded

And Italian cafes are getting calls
That you serve the nation’s best meatballs.

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Schwarbombs Away!

by Hilary Barta

Kyle Schwarber is not a Gold Glover
By candy machines he will hover
But when he connects
The baseball he wrecks
With power to knock off the cover.

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Play by Play

by Jim Daniels

For Ernie Harwell

My grandmother holds onto Ernie’s words, a gospel
of speared line drives, shoestring catches.
Robbed of a base hit: she curses softly.
Going, going, gone: she watches it sail.
Even at the ballpark, she squeezes her transistor.

She sometimes cries after a tough loss.
Ernie calms her, talks about
tomorrow’s game, the starting pitchers.
Instant runs, she says
in the middle of making tea,
wiping the table. Or Pull up a Stroh’s
and stay awhile.

A small crowd on Ernie Harwell Day
cold rainy September. She stayed home–
applauded her radio. Ernie Harwell.
When he says a man from Paw Paw
caught that one, she sees that man spill
his beer, lunge across an empty seat.

She sees him driving west toward Kalamazoo
sipping coffee to stay awake, his son
asleep in his lap. Sees him smile,
palm the ball, check the runners,
throw a curve.

* * *

My grandmother turns up the radio
against her deafness, shoves the earjack in
a little deeper, wiggles it. Ernie,
where are you? she laughs nervously.

Tonight September wind breezes
in the open windows, a late west-coast game
drifting through the air. In the kitchen
I see the red glow of a burner she’s left on.
I flick it off and peek into her dark room.
She is mumbling to herself
against the tinny static.
Let him hear her little prayers.

Jim Daniels is the Thomas Stockham Baker Professor of English at Carnegie Mellon University, where he has taught creative writing for 30 years. From The Long Ball (Pig in a Poke Press). Copyright 1988, Jim Daniels. All rights reserved.