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Spring Training’s Desert Hopes

by Dr. Rajesh C. Oza

All the teams are
Tied for first,
And might just win 2025’s World Series.

Hope blooms in
The Cactus League.

Rookies and vets
Have a thirst,
A spot on the team means no unemployment wearies.

Hope blooms in
The Cactus League.

Legends like Fergie Jenkins
Make Sloan Park burst,
Cheering on my novel’s baseball queries.

Hope blooms in
The Cactus League.

Dr. Oza’s novel Double Play on the Red Line, sits at the intersection of Fergie and Ernie’s Cubs, the Negro Leagues, riding the “L,” wrongful convictions, immigration and friendship. It will be published in 2025 by Chicago’s Third World Press.

The author (back to camera) chats with Fergie Jenkins at Sloan Park in Mesa, AZ, February 2025.

 

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Rickey Henderson

RIP to the greatest lead-off hitter of all time. (12/25/58-12/20/24)

Rickey came on Christmas Day
Rickey born in a cab that day
Rickey lightning on the field
Rickey is the Man of Steal
Rickey wins with all his teams
Rickey says what Rickey means
Rickey never gonna quit
Rickey too legit to quit
Rickey slowing down? Never!
Rickey gonna run forever.

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The Hirsute of Happiness

by Greg Simetz

The Yankees offseason was not inconsequential;
They lost slugger Soto whom all deemed fundamental
But the Cash Man got busy, signed Bellinger, Goldschmidt and Fried
Though the bigger news by far came from the facial hair side:
Their beard ban was shaved after a 50-year drought.
The ground crew’s been ordered to let stubble sprout
So come Opening Day, here’s the new Murderer’s Row:
Wells, Stanton and Volpe sporting 5 o’clock shadows.
Can ZZ Top Bombers stop the Dodgers from winning?
Or stop beating themselves in horrific 5th innings?
There’s only one thing for sure we’ll all get to see:
Aaron Judge going from goat to goatee.

 

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In a Good Winter

by Richie Hebner

In a good winter,
I’ll dig 50 graves.

It’s good work.
I get 25 bucks a grave.

If it has snowed, you just use a pick and shovel, scoop away the snow, the ground is good and soft.
But if it hasn’t snowed, the ground might be frozen two feet down.
You have to use a pneumatic drill.

One time last winter, the ground was so hard and the weather was so cold I said,
“Ah, that’s deep enough.”
There’s a law that a grave’s got to be so deep,
five feet or something,

And the Rabbi says,
“That’s not deep enough.”

“Did you ever see one get out?”
I asked him.

h/t to Jim Koenigsberger and his great Twitter account, @Jimfrombaseball

 

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It Ain’t Over . . .

by Louise Grieco

Baseball is something
like love. There’s an elegance
about it — a fine tension.

Fielders pluck comets
from thin and glorious air.
pitchers make solid spheres
disappear. And batters smash meteors
with matchsticks.

But fielders also topple
over fences, sprawl empty-handed
in the dust. Pitchers throw wild.
And batters sometimes tilt
at windmills.

Yet they lean in — watch — wait.
They risk looking foolish
in order to be brilliant.

Louise Grieco’s baseball poems often travel at lightspeed to the outer reaches of the galaxy. More a fan of the sport than of any particular team, she nevertheless rooted for the Yankees as a child growing up near Boston in the 1950’s-’60s. She lives and writes in Albany NY.