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This Team Isn’t Panicking

By James Finn Garner

This team isn’t panicking
There’s plenty of season left–
Though for piddling away Spring Training
We’re really quite bereft

This team isn’t panicking
There’s plenty of season left–
We might lack in fundamentals but
In dodging blame, we’re deft

This team isn’t panicking
There’s plenty of season left–
From our days in Double A you’d say
Most of us have regressed

This team isn’t panicking
There’s plenty of season left–
What is Time, anyway, huh?
A false construct, at best

This team isn’t panicking
There’s plenty of season left–
Just string together some victories
And we’ll put this issue to rest.

 

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To the Rookie of the Year, 1970….

By the St. Louis Browns Marketing Staff

You couldn’t have picked a better spot
In all the U.S.A.
Our welcome to St. Louis, son,
We send without delay.

If you can’t use these tickets
For just any game at all,
We’d be pleased to have your parents
When the umpire cries: “Play ball!”

Congratulations,

Bill Veeck

For a time, the Browns sent 2 free tickets to newborn children in St. Louis. Found on the marvelous Twitter feed of Jim Koenigsberger (@Jimfrombaseball). 

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Watching Baseball as We Age

by Aaron Sandberg

Where were we
.      when we began to see

most of these men
.      were half our age

and that any dream we had here
.      was mud-caked and attic-packed?

It’s all small ball now—
.      little victories, fundamentals.

Good knees. Pension plans.
.      Cold beer. Shaded stands.

A sacrifice bunt sets up
.      a suicide squeeze.

A body learns a lifetime
.      of committing toward the base,

of being waved again and again
.      toward home.

Winning is remembering
.      neither team escapes the fate

of swirling dust kicked up
.      from the slide into the plate

no matter how far they pull
.      their caps down over their eyes,

nor how the ump
.      will call the play.

 

Aaron Sandberg has appeared or is forthcoming in Asimov’s, No Contact, Alien Magazine, The Shore, The Offing, Sporklet, Burningword Journal and elsewhere. A multiple Pushcart and Best of the Net nominee, you can see him—and his poetry posts—on Instagram @aarondsandberg.

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A Monumental Anniversary

by James Finn Garner

In honor of the first game at the original Yankee Stadium.

A century ago, in the debuth
Of his eponymous stadium, Ruth
Hit the inaugural tater,
Auguring the later
Parade of glory under that roof.