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Baseball Cards #2

by Jim Daniels

Got `em got `em got `em
don`t got `em
Got `em got`em
don`t got `em

The clear flick of the cards
as I flip through Doug’s doubles
cuts thick August heat, summer, 1968
in the dusty field behind his house.

Look what I found, you guys.
His little brother Matt shows us
A magazine called Swank
wrinkled up and dirty.
Nothing like that
in our rubber-banded stacks.

We make a deal with Matt
and he flips through our doubles
Got `em got `em don`t got `em
as we silently turn the worn pages
and our mouths get dry.

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

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(It’s a) Spring Thing

by Hilary Barta

Take the bats and the balls and the batters
Add the catcalls and hall-of-fame statters
Then the scouting reports
That drown out other sports —
It’s the national pastime that matters

 

For the best in limericks, discerning doggerelists always insist on Hilary Barta’s poems at LimerWrecks.

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Requiem for Sam Henry

by Becky Binks

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.

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Movie Review: “Sugar”

by Doug Fahrendorff

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

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Mantle

by William Heyen

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.