Posted on

The Fugitive Poets of Fenway Park

by Martin Espada

– 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.

Posted on

Johnny Rosenblatt

by Todd Herges

An ode to shuttered baseball parks.  For info on Johnny Rosenblatt Stadium, please check the comments thread below.

And here’s to you, Boston’s Fenway Park,
Jesus loves you more than you will know — wo, wo, wo.
God bless you please, windy Wrigley Field,
Heaven holds a place for those who pray.
Hey, you’re all that remain.

We’d like to know a little bit about old stadia,
We’d like to help you keep some memories.
Look around you, all you see are old angelic eyes.
Strolling hallowed grounds of New York’s Polo Grounds.

And here’s to you, Jackie Robinson,
Ebbets Field saw fans who open grew — woo, woo, woo.
God bless you please, Jackie Robinson,
Brooklyn holds a place for those who played
Hey, hey, hey … hey, hey, hey.

Now so many places live where no one ever goes:
Shea, the Vet, Three Rivers and Candlestick.
It’s no shock Olympic Stadium’s no longer used.
Bigger surprise the House Ruth Built is gone now.

Coo, coo, ca-choo, all old stadia
We remember more than you will know — wo, wo, wo.
God bless you please, Houston Astrodome,
We remember Bad News Bears’ clutch play
Hey, hey, hey … hey, hey, hey.

Sitting in the bleachers on a Sunday afternoon,
Going to a big late-season day game.
Laugh about it, shout about it
When you’ve got to choose
Ev’ry way you look at it, you lose.

Where have you gone N. C. Double A
A nation turns its hungry eyes to you — woo, woo, woo.
What’s that you say, President Myles Brand?
Rosenblatt has left and gone away!
Hey, hey, hey … hey, hey, hey.

Posted 9/7/10

Posted on

Elegy for Tiger Stadium

by Jim Daniels

Wrap yourself in nostalgia’s blankets
it’s cold outside.

But even the blanket’s moth-eaten,
ragged with grief.

For today Tiger Stadium comes down.

*

Oh, the old green wooden seats
banging to start up a rally

Oh, the corrupt ushers
in their crooked ties

barking at kids sneaking down
to the good seats

Oh, the long urinal troughs in the men’s room
the line up of drunks and young boys on tiptoe

Oh, the bullpens along the baselines
watching the wonderfully evil Goose Gossage
warm up, the ball exploding in the catcher’s mitt.

Oh, the waxy plastic beer cups stacking up
beneath the bleacher benches

Oh, my three-year-old daughter in her sundress
smiling in her Tiger hat that last season, last game.

Michigan and Trumbull, Michigan and Trumbull.
Cochrane and Kaline, Cochrane and Kaline.

*

Oh, so you want me to wrap things up do you?
A game permanently shortened by rain.

Just remember stepping through shadows
up the narrow fenced ramp
into the upper deck
and into the explosion of sunshine on green grass.
Sunshine and green grass.

Squint and be a good boy.
Squint, and don’t cry.

Remember your first game ever
before anyone lied to you.

Let me call them out: Harmon Killebrew,
Boog Powell, Dick McAullife, #3,
with the stance of a mad scientist
trying to kill his creation.

Come on back for your cup of coffee
in the bigs, Purnell Goldy.

Come back for your one good season
Champ Summers. Let me say it again,

Champ Summers. Gates Brown.
Earl Wilson, the pitcher who pinch-hit,

Ron LeFlore, the ex-con. Jim Northrup,
grand-slam king. Bases loaded, dude.

Ray Oyler, come on back and crack .200.
Stormin’ Norman Cash come on back
and hit 361 again and show it was no fluke.

A high foul ball. A major league pop-up
and Freehan has the mask off, and Lance
Parrish has the mask off, and Mickey Cochrane
has the mask off.

Oh, big Frank Howard hitting one over the roof.
Oh, Dave Rozema karate-kicking his way
out of baseball just because he was young
and excitable.

Okay, Bird, I know you’ve been waiting,
come on back and tell the ball a few things
you forgot to say.

Bleachers or General Admission
Ladies/Retirees Day. Polish-
American Night.

50,000 kids with free bats bouncing them
off concrete. Bring back the father-son games

Charlie Dressen is my grandfather. Mayo Smith
my great uncle. Billy Martin the dark sheep.
Al Kaline, kind uncle. Gibby the cousin
the parents worried about.

Roll off the tarp, drag the infield.
Herbie do the Shuffle one more time

Bring back Jake Wood and Jerry Lumpe.

Mickey Lolich, come back in from the Donut Shop.
Denny McLain, come back from prison one last time.

*

Did I say I was going to stop? The rain’s letting up some.
The Orioles are in town with the Robinsons.
The Yanks are in town with Mantle and Maris
and did McLain really groove one to Mantle in ’68?

Just an organ in between innings.
No rock and roll scoreboard hi-jinks razzamatazz.

Ernie, take the mike.
We’ll all pull up a Stroh’s and stay awhile.
We’ll come down from Paradise to catch a foul ball.

Charlie Maxwell, come on back from Paw Paw.
It’s baseball. Nobody’s died. They’re all still alive.

Rust and cracks in memory’s stadium.
It didn’t have to be this way.
Trammell and Whitaker have one more double play
to turn.

Sock It to ’em Tigers.
Bless you, Boys.

I’m squinting into the sun.
All my life I’ve never seen such green.

Jim Daniels is a professor in the creative writing program at Carnegie Mellon University, and has written more than 25 books of poems and stories.

Posted on

Where Was I on October 3, 1951?

by Joseph Pacheco

To honor the memory of Bobby Thompson, who died this week, we are again running this tribute, first posted in  2008.

.

In the belly of the beast,
the Social Lounge of Brooklyn College,
the only New York Giant fan surrounded
by more than a hundred Brooklyn Dodger fans
cutting their classes to watch
the most important game in history,
the third playoff game
between the Giants and Dodgers —
having arrived there just after the sixth inning
from my Classical Civilization class
and Professor Costas’s lecture
on Aristotle’s Poetics,
during which I had argued
that a modern example of hubris
was Dodger manager Chuck Dressen
singing “Roll Out the Barrel,
“The Giants are Dead”
after his team swept the Giants
in a doubleheader on August 8;

the crowd in front of the tiny TV set
parting like the Red Sea
to let the token Giant fan stand up front,
the better to taunt me and watch me suffer
when Sal the Barber Maglie tired
in the top of the eighth
and the Dodgers scored three
to go ahead four to one,
the Social Lounge a-roar in unison
like a Greek chorus
and the outlook no longer brilliant
for my Manhattan Nine that day,
Newcombe still throwing strikes,
the Giants’ miracle spurt to the pennant
fizzling before my eyes,
everyone taking turns backslapping me
in mock consolation except for two twerps
wearing Ivy League sweaters standing on the side
and smirking just like Yankee fans
at Giant-Dodger games;
the game going into the bottom of the ninth
and the tension between catharsis, escape
from the humiliation of blowing
a thirteen-and-a-half-game lead in late August
and the awareness that three colossal outs
still stood in the way
causing a nervous hopeful silence
to fall upon the Dodger fans,
the only sounds the TV announcer
and myself, yelling “Peripeteia,
Giants, peripeteia, turn it around one more time;”

then Dark and Mueller letting drive singles
to the consternation of all
and the much admired Lockman
tearing the cover off the ball
and then the dust lifting
and the announcer being heard,
“Alvin’s in, Whitey’s safe on second,
and Don’s a-hugging third…”

“Take Newcombe out, take him out now!”
everyone shouting at the top of their lungs
as if they were at the game
and the Dodger manager walking out
to make the change
and suddenly I recognized it all,
anagnorisis, just like in Greek drama,
Bobby Thomson coming up to bat,
and who would Dressen pick to pitch to him?
hamartia, Dressen’s tragic flaw,
his error in judgment, would now take over;

“Bring in Branca!” I remember shouting,
“No, no, not Branca” the Dodger fans beseeching,
knowing Thomson had already hit three home runs off him,
the last one two days before in the first playoff game
and yet knowing,
like Greek audiences advising Oedipus,
that Dressen would bring him in;

the first pitch a strike and then the TV announcer
shouting “Oh!”— a shot of the stands emptying,
the fans pouring out on the field,
Stanky wrestling Durocher to the ground,
I must have jumped up and down twenty times,
yelling, “Incredible! I can’t believe it! The greatest!”
till becoming hoarse and  remembering
where I was, I turned around to gloat in triumph

and there was no one there.

Where was I on
October 5, 1951?

Telling Professor Costas and the class,
Aristotle was right:
If not at first — in the long run,
hubris and a high inside fastball
will do you in.