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Goodbye, Cruel World, It’s Opening Day

by Hart Seely

The gods place bets with loaded dice,
And all our earthly dreams betray,
But listen to one clown’s advice,
Goodbye, cruel world; it’s opening day.

The politicians scrounge for power,
With consequences we shall pay.
But somewhere, it’s our finest hour,
Goodbye, cruel world; it’s opening day.

Our weary age is full of war,
The daily news brings dark dismay,
So surf the dreams worth living for,
Goodbye, cruel world; it’s opening day.

April 9, 1976: Rudy Schaffer, Paul Richards and Chisox owner Bill Veeck ring in Opening Day at Comiskey Park.

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Respectable People

By Old Hoss Radbourn

No use in blinking
at the fact
that at that time the game was thought,
by respectable people,
to be only one degree above
grand larceny,
arson,
mayhem
and those who engaged in it were
beneath notice of
decent society.

Thanks to Jim Koenigsberger @Jimfrombaseball.

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MLB All-Counties-of-Ireland Team

1B   Wayne Tyrone
2B   Cavan Biggio
SS   Bunny Downs
3B   Jeter Downs

LF   Shane Mona[g]han
CF   Kerry Dineen
RF   Russ Derry

C     Corky Miller

LHP  Mike Kilkenny
RHP  Kerry Wood, Kerry Ligtenberg, Kerry Lacy, Kerry Taylor

MGR   Mayo Smith

Owner  Tom Monaghan

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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.

 

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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.