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An Immortal’s Mortality

By Elliot Harris

There is a harsh reality:
No one escapes mortality.
Even if you were a baseball great,
You still cannot avoid such a fate.

Hall of Fame pitcher Tom Seaver died,
And some fans of his likely cried.
Mortality and thoughts of Tom Seaver
Can turn us inward and into a griever.

A baseball immortal, that’s for sure
With a delivery that was so pure.
And yet with Death in the batter’s box
Not even the great ones can outfox.

No curve nor changeup nor blazing fastball
Has a chance against the swing of Death’s call.
All that is left on the great pitcher’s mound
Are the marvelous memories and joy unbound.

The Miracle Mets of long ago
Don’t seem so ancient to some of us, though
Who used to watch him and them play
When we were all young back in the day.

After Tom Seaver has been laid to rest
He still will remain among baseball’s best.
Still too will remain the human fragility:
We all will strike out against mortality.

(Editor’s Error: First submitted Sept. 3, 2020. RIP Tom Seaver)

 

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Diving Stop

by R. Gerry Fabian

Nothing
can equally
cause
intense elation
or
dismal disappointment
as that
hard hit ground ball
to the middle left
of the infield
with a runner on first
and only one
out.

 

R. Gerry Fabian is the author of three novels and four books of poetry. His latest book of poems, Ball On The Mound, is a collection of original baseball poems, available at Amazon.

 

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Playing Ball in the Hereafter

by Bill Cushing

As children, Henry Aaron and Don Sutton
grew up in towns three hours apart
and learned the game between fields of cotton;

then the hitter moved east, the pitcher, west,
as they took paths to opposite coasts.
Two All-Stars, they became among the best.

Upon dying, Sutton arrived first and may
have used the time to loosen his arm
while warming up on the clay

waiting for Hammerin’ Hank’s arrival.
As they play, now in eternal prime,
celestial fans admire erstwhile rivals

and wonder, from where they sit,
what is the most wonderous display:
the sweet pitch or power-driven hit?

 

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.