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Reverend Percy Kendall

by Michael Ceraolo

Even some well-versed in baseball history
are probably wondering who I am and why I’m here
I’m in the Hall of Fame
I don’t mean to say I was inducted into the Hall;
there is a photo of me in the library there
And that photo of me attending an Indians game in 1937
shows a radio next to me and an earpiece in my left ear
The radio is two-and-a-half feet tall and almost twenty pounds,
which certainly stretches the definition of the word portable
I usually listened to the broadcast of the game I was watching,
though I occasionally switched to broadcasts of Tigers games
I think I was the first to bring a radio to the ballpark,
or at least the first to be photographed doing so,
and that’s why the Hall has a picture of me

Michael Ceraolo is a 62-year-old retired firefighter/paramedic and active poet , the author of two full-length books (Euclid Creek, from Deep Cleveland Press; 500 Cleveland Haiku, from Writing Knights Press), and two more in the pipeline (Euclid Creek Book Two, from unbound content press; Lawyers, Guns, and Money, from Writing Knights Press).

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MLB All-Robin-Hood Team

by Jim Siergey and James Finn Garner

1B   Jacob Nottingham
2B   Abie Hood
SS   Marty Marion
3B   Robin Ventura

LF   Bow Jackson
CF   Lloyd Merriman
RF   Wally Hood

C    Shermwood Lollar

LHP   Ryan Sherriff, Don Hood, Forrest Thompson
RHP   Marion Fricano, Carlisle Littlejohn, Brett Merriman

MGR   Allan-a-Dale Sveum

Photo courtesy of the Robin Hood Foundation, dedicated to improving the lives of the most vulnerable New Yorkers. 

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Byrd Lynn

By Michael Ceraolo

Comiskey slandered me as unpatriotic
because I went to a shipyard
to work and play ball during the war,
just as he slandered Jackson and Williams,
but that doesn’t justify what they did
Joe and Lefty were my friends,
but don’t let any of the Black Sox bs you:
that wasn’t a one-time lapse in judgment;
they were up to their necks in it
All during the ’20 season they watched the scoreboard
to see what Cleveland was doing,
and if Cleveland was losing or had lost,
they did something to make sure we lost too
My career ended after the ’20 season;
I sometimes wonder if that was because
of guilt by association

Michael Ceraolo is a 62-year-old retired firefighter/paramedic and active poet, the author of two full-length books (Euclid Creek, from Deep Cleveland Press; 500 Cleveland Haiku, from Writing Knights Press), and two more in the pipeline (Euclid Creek Book Two, from unbound content press; Lawyers, Guns, and Money, from Writing Knights Press).

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MLB All-Interjection Team

1B   Hank “Bow Wow” Arft
2B   Shooty Babitt
SS   Hughie “Ee-Yah” Jennings
3B   Jose Alas

LF   Gee Walker
CF   Jake “Big Fudge” Marisnick
RF   “Wahoo” Sam Crawford

C     Yip Owens

RHP   Seunghwan Oh, Dillon Gee
LHP   Bob Owchinko, Johnny “Whiz” Gee

MGR    Hay!-Wood Sullivan

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Lefty Righty

Fiction by Jim Siergey

A young pitcher’s career is shaped by politics and zoology….

Baseball season is upon us and I find my thoughts drifting back to a forgotten ballplayer from the 1970s.

I don’t recall his name. It was Daltry or Daugherty or Delancey — something like that. But I do remember his nickname.

It was Dart.

He was a pitcher, and the epithet was hung on him because he threw so hard that the ball flew by the batter like a dart, nestling in the bull’s-eye of the catcher’s mitt.

Dart was one of those rocket-armed phenoms, signed out of high school and on the mound for his major league debut before he was 19 years of age. An auspicious debut it was, because he threw a one-hit shutout. It was a great beginning for what many baseball insiders predicted would be a Hall of Fame career.

Unfortunately, his sudden notoriety also piqued the interest of the Draft Board.

The Vietnam War was still going on, and Dart had wanted no part of it. When he received his induction papers into the United States Army, he simply ignored them.

When the authorities finally came sniffing around for him, Dart hightailed it to Canada. He officially became a “draft dodger.”

Despite his ignominious retreat, the kid was so talented that it was hard for at least one major league owner to ignore it. He wasn’t in Canada very long before he was signed by the Montreal Expos and added to the roster.

Continue reading “Lefty Righty”