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It Ain’t Over . . .

by Louise Grieco

Baseball is something
like love. There’s an elegance
about it — a fine tension.

Fielders pluck comets
from thin and glorious air.
pitchers make solid spheres
disappear. And batters smash meteors
with matchsticks.

But fielders also topple
over fences, sprawl empty-handed
in the dust. Pitchers throw wild.
And batters sometimes tilt
at windmills.

Yet they lean in — watch — wait.
They risk looking foolish
in order to be brilliant.

Louise Grieco’s baseball poems often travel at lightspeed to the outer reaches of the galaxy. More a fan of the sport than of any particular team, she nevertheless rooted for the Yankees as a child growing up near Boston in the 1950’s-’60s. She lives and writes in Albany NY.

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Base Ball

by Walt Whitman

Baseball is the hurrah game of the republic!
That’s beautiful: the hurrah game!
well—it’s our game:
that’s the chief fact in connection with it:
America’s game:
has the snap, go, fling, of the American atmosphere
belongs as much to our institutions,
fits into them as significantly,
as our constitutions, laws:
is just as important
in the sum total of our historic life.

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Nothing Succeeds Like Succes$

by James Finn Garner

You’ve folded, wild cards
Go lay down, underdogs

We now have the battle of monoliths
Monitor vs. Merrimack
Hulk vs. Red Hulk
Kong vs. Godzilla, Part XXVI

The broadcast execs are happy
Numbers save their bacon
Talking heads can finally stop
Pretending they like visiting Milwaukee
They now can cover
The only coasts that matter

The long (ha!) drought is over
For NY and LA
And the rest of us can tune in
To the NBA

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Why I Believe in Baseball Gods

by Ryan Diaz

Mets @ Brewers, Final Score: 4-2. METS WIN!

I’m only a pagan come October, when the
air cools and the leaves burn bright
and expectation fills the air like
incense spooling from marble altars,
and prayers like candles light the night.

And maybe Odin, after losing his bout
with Christ, figured an American pastime
.       would have to do, and Zeus
for all his thunder, settled for blessing bats,
heeding the prayers of grown men
.       who long after boyhood still wear
their baseball caps.

Maybe last night, one of them listened,
and in the bottom of the ninth worked
a little magic—and I, agnostic at best, atheist at worst
.       summoned up the faith
to ask for a blast over the right field fence.

Ryan Diaz is a writer and poet from Queens, NY. He is the author of three poetry books — For Those Wandering Along the Way (Wipf & Stock), Skipping Stones (Wipf & Stock) and The Wounded Monk — a chapbook of short poetry, Like Falling Leaves, and a novel, Abuelo: A Memoir. He lives in Queens, NY, with his wife Janiece and his son Damian, and is a lifelong (self-loathing) New York Mets fan.

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Baseball Parity, Chicago Parody

by Dr. Rajesh C. Oza

Had the Dodgers
Lost just one more game,
This sub-600 season woulda been lame.

The winning percentage
Of most every other team,
Was surely a parity-lover’s dream.

Leaving aside the Angels, Marlins, Rockies,
And the historically bad White Sox,
All the other ballclubs had their shots.

Within sniffing distance of the wild card,
A couple of wins here and there
Woulda given your team a playoff share.

If the Mets and Tigers coulda
Advanced to the second round,
My Cubbies, too, shoulda stuck around.

Yeah, there may be MLB pair-a-tee,
But as Steve Goodman’s Dying Cubs Fans know
They still play the blues in Chi-ca-go.

Dr. Oza’s novel Double Play on the Red Line sits at the intersection of Ernie Banks’ Cubs, the Negro Leagues, riding the El, wrongful convictions, immigration and friendship. It will be published in October 2024 by Chicago’s Third World Press.