Here’s to the ballhawks, that steadfast elite
Who feel that they’re owed for buying a seat,
Who’ll knock over kids to nab a home run
And hold the ball ransom til somebody comes
Through with free tickets, signed jerseys and swag
To reward them for making their glorious snag.
“A rookie’s first homer?” says a ballhawk with glee.
“Why should I give him the ball back for free?”
These guys deserve something for their tireless work
As parasites, blowhards and self-obsessed jerks.
When their daughters get married, let’s crash the affair,
Charge tolls for the toilets, rent them each chair,
And push over bridesmaids when the bouquet is tossed,
Then take bids to find which girl wants it most.
Each year around this time,
when the “0-for-August” jokes return
and the Cubbies’ fade begins,
thoughts of a famous postman
rise up to haunt and amuse me.
Joe Doyle was a man who delivered the mail
in rain and sleet and snow,
and on his route was the Tumble Inn –
a downstate Illinois tavern –
home to all fans of both Northside Nine
and their great crimson rival.
The year ‘69 held a season of fun that
was special and fine for Joe: his team
seemed a lock for the pennant …
until that Miraculous cloud,
like the rainstorms at Woodstock,
rolled darkly across his landscape.
On one infamous day that September –
as I sat in my Kindergarten class
learning of Apollo astronauts, the Aquarian age,
and letters and numbers and shapes –
Joe with his mailbag walked somberly,
I suspect, down Hickory Street toward the bar.
I’ve often wondered what went through
his mind on that hot Indian Summer morn
as he noticed the strangely full parking lot,
the parking meters on the street out front
all paid, the pregnant surprise party silence
lurking behind neon beer signs in the windows.
There’s not much doubt
what came out of his mouth
as he walked in a huff through the door
and into a smiling wall of Cardinal fan faces,
each one full of good jeer.
I’ve been told it sounded something like
“To Hell with ALL of ya!”
as the flung mail fluttered through the air
and fell like scattered bitter tears to the barroom floor –
as he turned his back on fellow fans of the pastime
and walked out the darkling still-open door
before it had yet banged shut.
Twenty-some years later Joe died.
He was honored by Cub fans and Card friends
alike – the Diehard fans more somber, I suspect,
with inklings of dread at sharing his fate:
he’d lived his long life whole and true,
full of joys and sorrows, pleasure and pain,
children and grandchildren, fortune and fame,
without once enjoying a single, solitary, goddamn title.
Yet still, before the casket lid shut,
a familiar blue cap was laid on his chest
and then moved to the top of his head.
Each year around this time
when the “0-for-August” jokes return
and the drive for the pennant kicks up
dust for the Cubs to chew on,
I’m often led to wonder
how many other hats,
with that same old circular C,
rest quietly underground, waiting.
With apologies and thanks to Bruce Springsteen and Mark Knopfler
.
In a screaming ring of faces
The fat man sits on a little stool
As my eyes take a walk all over you,
As his fingers take a walk in front of the cup.
Then the lights go out and it’s just the three of us:
Pitcher, catcher, batter.
Let it rock and let it roll
Down in through this tunnel of love.
Hey mister blue give me oh-two, give me oh and two ‘cause two can play this game.
But it’s only gonna be me playing tonight
With a mind, with a twig.
A little maple twig, soon to be shattered – if it’s dared put on my pitch.
Then the lights go out it’s just the three of us.
I’m laughing at you, you’re laughing at me,
But you’re a victim of my night
As I shoot an arrow through your heart.
You gotta learn to live with what you can’t rise above
The way my two finger rises and rides away
‘Cause it’s been money for muscle, another whiriligig,
And rockaway rockaway
On the tunnel of love. In this tunnel of love.
Down the pipe down the chute down the pike
I shoot the little seed,
The little pill-sized 5-ounce pea,
The tiny pea-sized 9-inch aspirin tablet,
At a baseball game, so high up
the birds seem bigger than the players,
bigger than the crowned lion mascot,
and bigger even, than my expectations,
because, you see, I didn’t root, root, root,
for anyone. The Royals sucked and the
Rangers were visitors, so it was
heresy to cheer when they won, which
I think they did, though it’s hard to
remember when all I see, looking back
through the heat, hazy like it is in a
too hot car, is a crowd of people all
trying not to fling themselves onto
the field, so green you could swim
in it, to cool down to the most basic
part of the experience: American History
and the obligation spun from those pages.
For more of Casey’s poetry, check out his blog, Poetry, DUH.
