by The Baseball Project
Be sure to catch The Baseball Project on their July 2024 tour through Texas and the Midwest.
Inside Baseball
by Matt Thomas
My mother developed a passion
for the idea of it
and then convinced the others to play;
my dad built a rough diamond in the backyard.
At first the bats were sticks and the bases rocks;
we played in tennis shoes.
Over time the approximate things
made acceptable by exuberance gave way
to manufactured advantage:
colorful mitts and bats, training gadgets,
clay and Bluegrass; we took turns on the mower,
striping the field and debated equipment:
wood vs. aluminum, screw-in vs. molded.
The family wasn’t enough;
members were added to the team.
We played once a week. We strategized
at dinner; we shared each other’s pools
and backyards for team cookouts.
The weeks became long
between games. We added
a practice day, and then a scrimmage.
We memorized the rule book and studied the history.
There were quizzes for the kids, who collected
player cards, compared stats,
acted out the tragic season of the ’79 Yankees,
fought over who would play Murcer and Munson.
It was said that the game chose you,
but I felt coerced
by its inescapable presence.
I rotated through the positions,
capable but uninspired. I doubted
my ability to care about winning.
Occasionally a teammate, similarly
ambivalent, began to miss practice, and then
after a period of time disappeared altogether.
When this happened the team
was sad for them – a life without baseball!
They hoped for their return.
Eventually, unable
to make a connection, I too walked away.
I don’t miss it, but strangely,
like others I know who left, who were
formed as children
by those particular joys and sorrows,
I am from time to time drawn back
on rainy days to sit in the dugout,
walk the bases,
toe the rubber of the pitcher’s mound;
not hoping but willing
to be surprised by a conviction
that I could be persuaded to love the game.
Matt Thomas is an engineer, poet and fair-weather Nats fan. He published a full-length collection, Disappearing by the Math, in February 2024. He lives with his family in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia.
Bad Ball Hitter
by R. Gerry Fabian
He came from the Dominican Republic.
A tangle of muscular arms and legs.
He could track a ball in the outfield
with a super radar accuracy.
His arm was above-average but precise.
It was at the plate
that is all seemed to go wrong.
He had no concept of the strike zone.
If he could reach it with his bat,
he would swing hard.
Like a coiled rattler,
he would lash out.
And lo and behold,
he could smash the ball
to every direction of the field.
The hitting coach gave up after
the first three months of instruction.
“What’s the point?”
He told the manager one day.
“The kid’s hitting .367, and
it’s the middle of August.”
What is Learned After a Drought
by Sebastian Hunter
In a ring of northern suburbs, a lead
is maintained well into the bottom of the
ninth. You and that horse
you rode in on share the same sad
face, both half-hearted and feasting
on outfield grass. In every ballpark
across the continental States, a looping
ball finds cushion in the field
below a quintessentially gibbous moon
and a night expanding ceaselessly.
Sebastian Hunter is a writer, musician, and perennially disappointed Mariners fan from Seattle. He is previously unpublished.
Skenes Zero-hitZ CubZ
by Dr. Rajesh C. Oza
Inning 1: Zero hits off pitching phenom Paul Skenes;
Three Cubs go down swinging.
Inning 2: Praise the name pronounced Skeenz;
Three more Ks: Ka-ching, Ka-ching, Ka-chinging.
Inning 3: He throws the ball 100 miles per hour;
“Only” one strikeout, but Cubs still have no hits.
Inning 4: From where does the kid get that power?
Two more strikeouts; batters flailing like twits.
Inning 5: Pitch after pitch, Skenes dominates;
A walk spoils his bid for perfection.
Inning 6: Comparisons whispered about all-time greats;
Quick-hook manager says, “You’re done, son.”
Innings 7, 8 and 9: Wrigley Field turns bitter;
Pirates fans grumble, “Coulda been a no-hitter!”
