Late autumn brings damp and rain;
The baseball season is over again.
The Redbirds were soaring;
Their fans were roaring.
And Texas went home empty-handed.

The holidays and new year’s come,
Bringing dreams of series rings to everyone.
The hot stoves start burning,
With free agent yearning,
And revulse at the salaries commanded.

Spring brings tulips and green grass.
Training and opening day are here at last.
Northern fans bundle for the game,
Southern weather is a lot more tame.
And all hope to catch a foul single-handed.

The late Samuel Henry Donham (a college and semi-pro first baseman whose career ended in injury, and later a junior high baseball coach) instilled a love of baseball in his family, including his daughter-in-law Becky. She is a longtime Cubs fan whose faith is wavering.

Miguel “Sugar” Santos
Signs a pro baseball contract
Every Dominican boy’s dream
First step to “The Show”
In a small Iowa town
Battling differences
In culture and language
Miguel’s dreams play out
Is baseball
The only road to success
Divergent paths appear
A future reconsidered

Mantle ran so hard, they said,
he tore his legs to pieces.
What is this but spirit?

52 homers in ’56, the triple crown.
I was a high school junior, batting
fourth behind him in a dream.

I prayed for him to quit, before
his lifetime dropped below .300.
But he didn’t, and it did.

He makes Brylcreem commercials now,
models with opened mouths draped around him
as they never were in Commerce, Oklahoma,

where the sandy-haired, wide-shouldered boy
stood up against his barn,
lefty for an hour (Ruth, Gehrig),

then righty (DiMaggio),
as his father winged them in,
and the future blew toward him,

now a fastball, now a slow
curve hanging
like a model’s smile

William Heyen’s poems have appeared in over 100 periodicals. He taught English literature and creative writing at the State University of New York College at Brockport for over 30 years. He recently performed “Mantle” at the Chautauqua Festival.

Brandon Inge will take a trip to Triple-A.
Where he will attempt to swing his slump away.
Fans can hope he hits the way he did five years before,
But there ain’t no getting over being 34.

Where the dreams come from not everyone knows
but the fortunate few who the old coaches chose
stand straight now in two perpendicular rows
recite the good pledge, then take a few  throws.

The glare of bright lights, the cameras, the action
excite each young ballplayer’s loud hometown faction
and give tickled fathers some proud satisfaction
that’s tempered with hope, and a tinge of distraction.

A few in the Big Show once played on this stage
but so many more advance to old age
not reaching this peak of pure athletic rage –
a peak just a championship will assuage.

With fundraising over, long practices done
it’s time for the whole world to tune into fun:
to watch catchers gun and the fast runners run;
to see which team ends up on top, number one.

Regular contributor Todd Herges has passed along the exciting news that his son, Jack, plays on the new Nebraska state champ Little League team!  Congrats to Jack and the squad from Kearney!

Saturday afternoon, alone in the living room
I crouched on the floor to watch
the Tigers lose another game.

Don Wert let a ball roll through
his legs and down the line in left.
You pimp, I cried
as the winning run scored.

My mother dropped laundry, grabbed my arm:
what’d you call him?
Pimp, I mumbled. I was nine
and about to learn a new word.

My mother turned off the tv.
A man sells a woman’s body.
I thought about that for a long time:

Don Wert missed a ground ball.
Don Wert did not sell women’s bodies.
Don Wert was not a good third baseman.
Don Wert was not a pimp.

It would be a couple more years
before I thought much about women’s bodies
before I etched a g for girls
into my dresser drawer knob I used
to dial in my dreams.

That night I pinned Don Wert’s baseball card
to my dartboard and took my pleasure.
Pimp, I whispered, pimp.

Jim Daniels is the Thomas Stockham Baker Professor of English at Carnegie Mellon University, where he has taught creative writing for 30 years.

Little League Hero,
First-round pick.
Partied ’til sick,
Major league zero.

Cleared his name,
Did what it takes.
Signed with the Snakes,
Back in the game.

One
of the 10,342 baseball cards in my parents’ attic
sneezes in the dampness, remembers
sweaty hands.

He calls to me across hundreds of miles:

Remember me, Jake Wood, 1964, 2nd base, Detroit Tigers,
Series 2, No. 272?

He wants to stretch his legs, climb out
from between Wilbur Wood and the 4th Series Checklist
wants to outsail all the other cards
in a game of farthies, float down
on Jose Tartabull in a game of tops.
He wants to smell like fresh from the pack
wants to be perfumed again
with the pink smell of bubble gum.

.

Jim Daniels is the Thomas Stockham Baker Professor of English at Carnegie Mellon University, where he has taught creative writing for 30 years.

If Albert Pujols is merely mortal,
Who will be our heroic portal?
You may chuckle, you may chortle–
But people need an idol.

No longer great, but merely good,
Ain’t hit like St. Lou thinks he should,
But if free agency comes–it could–
The wave of suitors? Tidal.

Dad’s stories of baseball
In the 60′s
Catch in the backyard
Cheering for the same team
Pickup games at the school field
Your own Louisville slugger
Breaking in a new glove
Collecting baseball cards
A visit to the Hall of Fame
Watching “Field of Dreams”
Expectations on opening day
Your team
Winning the pennant
And World Series