Sitting in Box Seats During Later Innings

By Tom Dyja

with apologies to Robert Frost

Whose seats these are, I think I know.
He lives in Elk Grove Village, though.
He will not see us sitting here
To watch Samardzija rear and throw.

My little son must think it queer
That I’m not tossing back a beer.
But since crap wage is all I make,
Eight bucks for Bud felt sort of dear.

The usher comes, gives me a shake
Because he knows there’s some mistake.
My kid’s just six. Who cares? The creep
Makes sure he knows that I’m a fake.

The ivy shudders, dark and deep.
But all I want to do is weep.
The seats I bought were way too cheap.
The seats I bought were way too cheap.

.

Tom Dyja is the author most recently of Walter White: The Dilemma of Black Identity in America, as well as the novels The Moon in Our Hands, Meet John Trow, and the Civil War baseball novel Play for a Kingdom.

Posted 5/4/09.

Walt Whitman’s Scorecard

by Jonathan Eig

.

I SING the Body injected:
The fans embrace me with their massive arms, and I embrace them with mine, bigger;
They will not stop till I am convicted, denying everything,
And destroy their innocence, and shake them with the hormonal growth of the Soul.

Was it doubted that those who inject their own bodies enlarged themselves;
And that those who defile the game now defile the game forever?
And if the body does not grow as much as the Soul?
And if the body were not so large as the Soul, what dosage is required?

.

Posted 4/17/09

Queen City Bingo

by Doug White

Walt and Bobby sitting in a tree,
S-I-G-N-I-N-G !
First came Corey,
Then came Willy,
Now there’s no hope of catching Philly
(or anybody else in the wild card race …)

Posted 3/5/09