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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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Baseball in Mexico City Feels Like Football in California

by Rajesh C. Oza

As comedian George Carlin famously said,

“Baseball begins in the spring, the season of new life.
Football begins in the fall, when everything’s dying …

In football you wear a helmet.
In baseball you wear a cap …

Football has hitting … and unnecessary roughness.
Baseball has the sacrifice.”

So what did the Giants and Padres sacrifice
In Mexico City’s elevation?

The beauty of a 1-0 shutout;
So many flailing arms in spent bullpens;

And a congested scorecard that seemed to replace
Baseball’s home runs with football’s touchdowns.

As the Giants’ announcer Jon Miller said repeatedly,
“¡Adiós pelota! ¡Adiós pelota! ¡Adiós pelota!”

 

Dr. Oza is a management consultant and facilitates the interpersonal dynamics of MBAs at Stanford University. His recently completed Double Play, written in Stanford’s novel-writing program, will be published in 2024 by Chicago’s Third World Press.

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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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The Limits of Human Vision

by Greg Maddux

You just can’t do it.
Sometimes hitters can
pick up differences in spin.
They can identify pitches
if there are different
release points
or
if a curveball starts
with an upward hump
as it leaves a pitcher’s hand.
But if a pitcher can
change speeds,
every hitter is
helpless,
limited by human vision.

Except for that (expletive) Tony Gwynn.