Doppelgänger: Catch Me If You Con

by Rajesh C. Oza

Catchers are a con,
With the masks that they don.

They move outside pitches in,
Making the umpire’s head spin.

Like a leathery snapping turtle,
Their fat gloves makes pitches fertile.

Fingers flash sneaky signs,
Keeping balls out of Wrigley’s vines.

But what catchers really hide,
Is that they have another side:

Their future after catching daily trouble,
May emerge as a post-playing days’ double.

Eyes darting, they see the whole field,
Imagining that someday they will wield

A baton like Connie, Gabby, Girardi, and Bochy,
And, of course, that wise backstop/leader named Yogi,

Who said, “It ain’t over till it’s over,”
Maybe meaning careers evolve forever.

Perhaps suggesting that a catcher is
To a big-league manager,

As a caterpillar eying the blue sky is
To an imperial monarch butterfly.

“It ain’t over till it’s over” is the last sentence of “Double Play,” Dr. Oza’s novel which will be published in 2024 by Chicago’s Third World Press. Dr. Oza is a management consultant and facilitates the interpersonal dynamics of MBAs at Stanford University.

 

Shifty Times

by Fred Lovato

“Hit ‘em where they ain’t”
an ancient baseball adage
not in vogue these days

 

The ’30s

by Van

All I know is that some other people made it big
Some other people got paid, some got famous
but all I know is I wanna play, everyday
I don’t care to compare to the Babe or Speaker
I just want to raise the crowd when I come to bat,
I want to quiet the crowd when I make a catch
I want to be all of that for a quarter dollar a day.