Elegy for Tiger Stadium
by Jim Daniels
Wrap yourself in nostalgia’s blankets
it’s cold outside.
But even the blanket’s moth-eaten,
ragged with grief.
For today Tiger Stadium comes down.
*
Oh, the old green wooden seats
banging to start up a rally
Oh, the corrupt ushers
in their crooked ties
barking at kids sneaking down
to the good seats
Oh, the long urinal troughs in the men’s room
the line up of drunks and young boys on tiptoe
Oh, the bullpens along the baselines
watching the wonderfully evil Goose Gossage
warm up, the ball exploding in the catcher’s mitt.
Oh, the waxy plastic beer cups stacking up
beneath the bleacher benches
Oh, my three-year-old daughter in her sundress
smiling in her Tiger hat that last season, last game.
Michigan and Trumbull, Michigan and Trumbull.
Cochrane and Kaline, Cochrane and Kaline.
*
Oh, so you want me to wrap things up do you?
A game permanently shortened by rain.
Just remember stepping through shadows
up the narrow fenced ramp
into the upper deck
and into the explosion of sunshine on green grass.
Sunshine and green grass.
Squint and be a good boy.
Squint, and don’t cry.
Remember your first game ever
before anyone lied to you.
Let me call them out: Harmon Killebrew,
Boog Powell, Dick McAullife, #3,
with the stance of a mad scientist
trying to kill his creation.
Come on back for your cup of coffee
in the bigs, Purnell Goldy.
Come back for your one good season
Champ Summers. Let me say it again,
Champ Summers. Gates Brown.
Earl Wilson, the pitcher who pinch-hit,
Ron LeFlore, the ex-con. Jim Northrup,
grand-slam king. Bases loaded, dude.
Ray Oyler, come on back and crack .200.
Stormin’ Norman Cash come on back
and hit 361 again and show it was no fluke.
A high foul ball. A major league pop-up
and Freehan has the mask off, and Lance
Parrish has the mask off, and Mickey Cochrane
has the mask off.
Oh, big Frank Howard hitting one over the roof.
Oh, Dave Rozema karate-kicking his way
out of baseball just because he was young
and excitable.
Okay, Bird, I know you’ve been waiting,
come on back and tell the ball a few things
you forgot to say.
Bleachers or General Admission
Ladies/Retirees Day. Polish-
American Night.
50,000 kids with free bats bouncing them
off concrete. Bring back the father-son games
Charlie Dressen is my grandfather. Mayo Smith
my great uncle. Billy Martin the dark sheep.
Al Kaline, kind uncle. Gibby the cousin
the parents worried about.
Roll off the tarp, drag the infield.
Herbie do the Shuffle one more time
Bring back Jake Wood and Jerry Lumpe.
Mickey Lolich, come back in from the Donut Shop.
Denny McLain, come back from prison one last time.
*
Did I say I was going to stop? The rain’s letting up some.
The Orioles are in town with the Robinsons.
The Yanks are in town with Mantle and Maris
and did McLain really groove one to Mantle in ’68?
Just an organ in between innings.
No rock and roll scoreboard hi-jinks razzamatazz.
Ernie, take the mike.
We’ll all pull up a Stroh’s and stay awhile.
We’ll come down from Paradise to catch a foul ball.
Charlie Maxwell, come on back from Paw Paw.
It’s baseball. Nobody’s died. They’re all still alive.
Rust and cracks in memory’s stadium.
It didn’t have to be this way.
Trammell and Whitaker have one more double play
to turn.
Sock It to ‘em Tigers.
Bless you, Boys.
I’m squinting into the sun.
All my life I’ve never seen such green.
Jim Daniels is a professor in the creative writing program at Carnegie Mellon University, and has written more than 25 books of poems and stories.
State Gold
by Todd Herges
On the occasion of my son winning the USSSA Nebraska state championship, U11 division
Winning it all bestows some
Pride
For all of the games well-played;
Satisfaction
For all the big metro team thumpings;
Excited hope
For next season and all that will follow
on the way to the show (for sure?);
Redemption
For past transgressions – especially the mental;
Medals
That will hang on hall of fame walls
until future days when all of them fall;
Memories
That will live as long
as the players and their parents and their kids.
Posted 7/18/10
Playing Golf in Kearney on the Last Tuesday of the Last College Series at Rosenblatt
By Todd Herges
To stand on a crest
In the two o’clock shade
‘Neath the bough of an ever green cedar
On a mid-summer day
When the sky is so blue so full
Of nothing but promise
Of a gentle late-summertime breeze
And later a gentle night shower …
To look southward
And forward
And toward a great rift
Of a great river valley below
And see the rise of soft shoulders beyond …
Is to stand without feeling
Your feet or your height
Or your avoirdupois at all
And to think that right now
As the spring turns to fall
It’s good to be here in Nebraska.
Posted 7/4/10
With Love and Ancient Cautions: From a Wood Fan to a Strasburg Fan
By Joe Moag
Unto He!
Unto He, the new rookie,
He with an arm fit to hoist Zeus’ bolt,
Fit to slay our past; fit to redeem our degradations.
Unto He, our welcomed savior!
A reprieve from years of ill, from years of doubt,
From years of lowness.
Unto He, the Lifter!
Unto He, the Changer!
Unto He, the Future!
Unto He, Alleviator of this state
Of prolonged exile, of overdue vengeance,
Of our just and righteous payback!
Unto He we place this proof
That our faith, traveled across orphanage and dismissal,
Our Faith, that thing
Which steeled our resolve
To simply stay in the game long enough,
Has borne fruit! It has brought
Him, here, to Us.
No light as bright as this has ever shone, only to
Fall away in wreckage through the dimming of life’s cold onslaughts and hurly-burl!
Immortals don’t flinch, or suffer, or miss their mark – they shine!
Our wait itself is the toil and testament to the surety of this!
This Game and its Gods, who sit high and low,
Sworn sacred to the mischief in their souls
Could never be jealous enough
To make this foreseen future, this deserved fate,
Fall short.
Posted 6/27/10
Free Bat Day, Tiger Stadium, 1971
by James Finn Garner
.
Rallies were exciting,
Cheers a clanging roar
When each kid 14 and under
Got a bat at the stadium door.
They pounded on the railings,
The seats, pillars and floor,
Then they pounded on each other–
Bats ain’t given out no more.
.
Posted 6/22/10
