Skip to main content

Seventh Inning Stretch





I want to be a fast ball:
a four seam or two seam rising, exploding fast ball
painting the black over the middle of the dish,
high and tight, good cheese.
The batter will sense I'm coming,
yet I'll hum by him before he swings. 
I want to be slapped into the glove
and rotated across the Ace's familiar hands
held, caressed by fingers that know every pockmark, odd stitch,
the factory's familiar brand
and then just hurled clocking in the high nineties or hundreds.

The top of the first, the bottom of the ninth,
bases loaded and the hitter standing proud,
the foul ball that rolls out on the third base line.
I want to be a routine double play,
a can of corn, a circus catch
the closer throwing the bunt out at first base,
the play that doesn't make the highlight reel.
I want to be a Texas leaguer, an infield fly,
Once I missed a pop fly and caught it in the face,
the runner made first and raced around to second base
as my eye bruised up and swelled shut.
It kept me from playing for a day or two.

I want to be a Louisville slugger,
weights draped around my neck  as the fireman warms up,
swings the bat from side to side in the hole.
I want to be the plugger.
I want to be the bat,
the varnished wood, the sweet spot,
the brand burned into the side, the white tape around the narrow grip.
The lucky bat for the home run king that swings it at a ferocious clip,
I want to be the first bat for a ten year old.

I want to be the tools of ignorance, the grass stained pants, the home team's offensive chants,
the catcher's mitt tied together around a ball to break it in,
the black stitched webbing, leather cross section.
I want to be the lightly padded part in the glove
 that makes the catcher grimace when he catches heat.
 I ducked into a fast ball once and took it on the cheek. 
Now I'm wary of grounders, line drives, and balls that come down with the sun behind their back
and still flinch when balls are thrown my way.

I want to be a baseball game,
the slow pace,
the Bronx cheer,
the reliever nailing down a victory in the rubber game,
the announcer calling names,
the field crew raking sand,
the vendors working the aisles
and the rhubarb and the pickle
and the strangers that will stand and sing,
the organ music warming up
"Take me out to the ball game,
Take me out with the crowd;
Buy me some peanuts and Cracker Jacks,
I don't care if I never get back..."

August 19, 2015



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Peregrinating the Albuquerque Bosque

  The Map. Overview: Starting in the San Juans in Colorado, the Rio Grande "is the twenty-second longest river in the world and the fourth or fifth longest in North America" ( Texas State Historical Society ).  While the river is characterized by the area it flows through, the river from Elephant Butte Dam to the south to Cochiti Dam in the north is called the Middle Rio Grande.  And in the middle of the middle Rio Grande is the roughly 20 plus miles that flows through Albuquerque.  From an airplane, the Rio Grande is a brown ribbon bordered a green ribbon.  That green ribbon is the Bosque .  I've always been fascinated really exploring an area, getting a sort of overview of an area then drilling down to really get it.  It's led to me hiking the Sandias from end to end and then hiking outlying trails multiple times, biking all the trails in the Cedro Peak area because someone put them on a map, trying different routes to get to ...
3 comments
Read more

Peregrinating the Albuquerque Bosque-the Autumnal Equinox edition

Overview:   In June, around the Summer Solstice, my wife, my dog, and I set out to hike the Albuquerque Bosque from end to end over two days .  It was well over a hundred degrees and after starting later than expected we didn't make it as far the first day as we hoped.  But we did make it. Now, three months later, around the Autumnal Equinox, we set out to do it again.  Our route was slightly different and, with the weather being a lot more pleasant, broke the day into a thirteen mile day and a five mile day:  eighteen total miles from Valle de Oro National Wildlife Refuge to the Alameda Bridge right on the border between Albuquerque and Corrales. The things we wanted to do differently this time were pretty straightforward:  1) don't get lost at the south terminus and get into the bosque sooner, and 2) walk even more on the westside.  So, the route was a follows:  we'd walk on the east side from Valle de Oro to the Rio Bravo Bridge, cro...
3 comments
Read more

Volume 7 & 8 of What if the Beatles never broke up?

 With the commercial success of Band on the Run and Venus and Mars , Paul had all but erased the demon of being "merely" the cute Beatle.  He had his own success, with Wings, and could stand his own compositions up next to what he did in the Beatles.   Wings at the Speed of Sound went to number one on the strength of "Let "Em In" and "Silly Love Songs," which I chose not to include because in this project the critique that lead to its creation may not have been an issue.  Instead, I include his great, "With A Little Luck" that came out in 1978 on   London Town and the great single "Mull of Kyntyre," which is so damn Scottish its easy to see why it was a hit in Great Britain but no where else. I certainly don't agree with the contemporary critics who characterized George Harrison's Thirty Three and 1/3 as his "best release since All Things Must Pass."   In fact I think the earlier releases of Living In The Materi...
Post a Comment
Read more