by Joyce Heiser
Twenty-first birthday
and daughter’s a White Sox fan.
Booze might help that pain.
Baseball in the City of God
by Todd Herges
“the body, better than it was here in its best estate of health”
Augustine, City of God 13.20
Unlike the mound and infield now,
where grass, dirt, dew drops,
chalk receive and slow
the stitched sphere, will you watch
the cicatrice on the weedless diamond
heal itself before you, glisten
as if untouched but for
the men who cut it clean
of taller whiskery rising strands
that perfect day you found it once,
a glorious Spring day,
in the park in the middle of town?
Or rather will nature be itself
renewed? To the wind give its scars;
the body, its best estate of health
surpassed, from which not its power
but all need is taken, balanced,
sturdy on the spikes; and action:
you turn, meeting the ball with the rounded branch,
willing time true, and each his own perfection.
This is what you wanted, hope for
every time you play:
love casting its heart’s weight’s core
through time to that eternal day.
With apologies to Dr. Gene Fendt
No Ties, No Ticking Clocks: April 18, 1981
by Barbara Gregorich
There are no ties in baseball,
there is no ticking clock.
The game could continue forever.
One night in Rhode Island
the Rochester Red Wings
face the Pawtucket Red Sox.
A fierce wind invades the stadium,
numbing fans and players alike.
Make this one quick, everyone hopes.
Lights generate no warmth.
Fans applaud, the game begins.
Six scoreless innings, then Rochester drives in
a single run. Bottom of the ninth,
the PawSox also score a single run.
There are no ties in baseball,
there is no ticking clock. There are only
more chances. The extra innings creep
like icicles: tenth, eleventh, twelfth arrive
and depart with nothing but snowballs
to show: big, round, cold zeros.
At the end of eighteen innings
the score remains one-one.
The temperature drops to bathyspheric depths.
Players light bonfires in trash barrels,
burning broken bats as fuel. Fans go home
to furnaces that blast hot air.
Players long to go home, too, but first
one of them must cross home.
The stadium sells out of food. Clubhouse men
deploy into the frigid night and return
with chow the players bolt down. The game
goes on — four hours . . . five . . . six.
There are no ties in baseball,
there is no ticking clock.
And then, top of the twenty-first inning —
Rochester scores a second run.
Hallelujah!
The game will, at long last, be over.
Completed.
No. Not meant to be.
Pawtucket also scores a second run
in the bottom of the twenty-first. Game tied,
Continue reading “No Ties, No Ticking Clocks: April 18, 1981”
AL East 2011 Haiku Predictions
By Stuart Shea
BALTIMORE ORIOLES
Talented groundhogs
Trying to burrow through a
two-layer brick wall.
BOSTON RED SOX
Deep at every spot.
Not young at any of them,
Must win now or else.
NEW YORK YANKEES
E. Chavez is “back”!
Well, that’s a strange way to say
That he feels “healthy.”
TAMPA BAY RAYS
Damon? Ramirez?
It all depends what kind of
leadership you want.
TORONTO BLUE JAYS
Latinos can get
Good job opportunities
North of the border.
Bye, Bye, Berkman
By Stuart Shea (apologies to Dixon-Henderson)
Been an Astro for so long,
Got the gong,
Here’s your song:
Bye, bye, Berkman.
Master of the hard line drive,
You’re 35?
What’s that jive?
Bye, bye, Berkman.
When Ed Wade shipped your contract to the Yankees last July,
You didn’t know it wasn’t “come on back,” but just “goodbye.”
The hourglass is losing sand.
Will you land
In Japan?
Bye, bye, Berkman.