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Playing Ball in the Hereafter

by Bill Cushing

As children, Henry Aaron and Don Sutton
grew up in towns three hours apart
and learned the game between fields of cotton;

then the hitter moved east, the pitcher, west,
as they took paths to opposite coasts.
Two All-Stars, they became among the best.

Upon dying, Sutton arrived first and may
have used the time to loosen his arm
while warming up on the clay

waiting for Hammerin’ Hank’s arrival.
As they play, now in eternal prime,
celestial fans admire erstwhile rivals

and wonder, from where they sit,
what is the most wonderous display:
the sweet pitch or power-driven hit?

 

A former New Yorker, Bill Cushing lives and writes in Los Angeles as a Dodger fan (by order of his wife!). His latest collection, Just a Little Cage of Bone (Southern Arizona Press), contains this and other sports-related poems.

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42

by Phillip W. Wilson

He was not
the best Negro League player
the Dodgers could have signed.
But he was the first
so he had to be better
than legendary.

Where did his calm come from
when he took the field
amidst a rain of insults
hurled like a pyroclastic flow?

How did he show the best
in men
while men showered him
with the worst?

How could he do it
one more day
let alone the next
and then the next?

Whatever it was
burned in him
with such intensity and
white hot heat that,
like Vulcan,
he forged impenetrable armor.

Baseball retired
Jackie Robinson’s 42
for all teams for all time.
The answer to life, the universe
and everything,
is it any wonder
it is the angle at which
sunlight and water
turn into rainbows?

Phillip has recently been published in Poeming Pigeon, and received an Honorable Mention in 2020 in the Oregon Poetry Association’s Contest for new poets. He lives in Beaverton, Ore., with his wife, who is also a poet.

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La Russa La Loca

by Greg Simetz

Tony La Russa intentionally walked a batter
with two strikes and two outs
The next guy up hit a homer,
bringing Tony’s mind into doubt.

A head scratching choice
A questionable call
Tony swore the statistics
Would cause the Dodgers to stall.

But the Sox have a plan
to get back on the right track:
Swapping 77-year-old La Russa
for 87-year-old Connie Mack.

(Editor’s Error! This limerick was submitted in June of 2022, but was lost in the Inbox.)

 

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715

by Dan Spinella

We watched it together, community
We saw it through a black & white screen
No. 44’s smooth delivery
No. 44’s elegant swing

Buckner at the fence
Tom House in the ‘pen
715
Aaron met at the plate
Kissed by his mother forever

Cheers for a black man
in the South
“You can hear Georgia
around the world.”

 

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This Year’s Departures

by James Finn Garner

The season is done, the jocks are stored
Only two teams are left on the board
Let’s pause now, while for Friday we wait,
And salute the retirements of a few greats.

Pujols hit his 700th for the Cards
And now will have time to work on his yard.

Bosox and Cubs champ Jon Lester
Now is an official hammock tester.

Music lover Kurt Suzuki
Can learn the banjo or bouzouki

After the majors, Ádrian González played on
But after this year, A-Gon done gone.

Melky Cabrera, the man and the myth,
Will star in community theater: “The Melkman Cometh.”

And if anyone’s  looking for J.A. Happ,
He’s out on the patio, taking a nap.