Last week — in the spirit of “Let’s play two!” — I promised a second baseball post. And while I’d like to keep listing notable names and nicknames — Cool Papa Bell, Boog Powell, Dock Ellis (his real name, and worth a click), Bombo Rivera — I think I’ll keep my earlier pledge and actually post some poems. Let’s forget the calendar, the weather report, the faux-ticker-tape cleanup. Let’s pretend it’s Opening Day.
Marianne Moore puts it neatly: “Writing is exciting / and baseball is like writing.” And only an idiot would argue with Marianne Moore. So, four poems — one for each station of the diamond — excerpted or in full, with occasional play-by-play and color commentary:
How to Write Autobiography
Avoid fried meats which angry up the blood
says Satchel Paige in his memoir, with all
the daffy precision of the troubleball
that left left-handers corkscrewed in the mud.
Presume Kingfish’s innocence. Who’s bringing
the allegation but the alligator?
And who’s that writing? John the Revelator.
Don’t interrupt the blind man when he’s singing.
When writing, say or sing. Improvisation
was your whole life. Authentic is a game
that favors those who throw like trouble, name
like Adam and pronounce like Revelation.
Or fake it. Look at these italics, leaning
hard with the weight of someone else’s meaning.– Eric McHenry (from Potscrubber Lullabies, The Waywiser Press, 2006)
In McHenry’s saying (and singing), “left” becomes “left-handers” just as sneakily as the troubleball becomes strike three.
***
Analysis of Baseball
It’s about
the ball,
the bat,
and the mitt.
Ball hits
bat, or it
hits mitt.
Bat doesn’t
hit ball, bat
meets it.
Ball bounces
off bat, flies
air, or thuds
ground (dud)
or it
fits mitt.– May Swenson (first stanza only; for the rest of the poem, click here)
It’s also about the rhymes, the almost magical symmetry between the hitting and the fitting. Baseball is full of such symmetries: nine players and nine innings; three strikes and three outs; Candlestick Park and Alvin Dark.
***
The Base Stealer
Poised between going on and back, pulled
Both ways taut like a tightrope-walker,
Fingertips pointing the opposites,
Now bouncing tiptoe like a dropped ball
Or a kid skipping rope, come on, come on,
Running a scattering of steps sidewise,
How he teeters, skitters, tingles, teases,
Taunts them, hovers like an ecstatic bird,
He’s only flirting, crowd him, crowd him,
Delicate, delicate, delicate, delicate — now!– Robert Francis (from The Orb Weaver, Wesleyan UP, 1960)
In the phrase “crowd him, crowd him,” the word “crowd” performs a bit of linguistic hovering. It appears at first to be a verb — part of a player’s exhortation, similar to “come on, come on.” But blink, and it becomes a noun; suddenly the flirting is taking place not only between the pitcher and the base runner but also between the base runner and the crowd. The crowd wants to see some action; the base runner is going to stretch out the moment just a bit longer. So is the poet.
***
British Poets
Pope ss
Keats 2b
Shakespeare cf
Milton 1b
Spenser rf
Chaucer 3b
Jonson lf
Yeats c
Donne p– Charles North (from Complete Lineups, Hanging Loose Press, 2009; more lineups here)
In Ecstatic Occasions, Expedient Forms, North discusses his lineup:
I wrote my first baseball lineup poem more than twenty years ago for a friend who was struggling with a doctoral dissertation in English. By arranging “major” British poets into a batting order, complete with positions in the field, I was presenting him with a dissertation ready-made. The idea, though outrageous, was valid, I felt — given some knowledge of baseball on the part of the reader, in particular the associations that attach, willy-nilly, for the baseball fan, to both position in a batting order and position in the field. Scrappy Alexander Pope was clearly a leadoff man; Milton played first base and batted cleanup; Donne pitched (and won thirty games four times).
***
In my more sports-addled semi-youth, I wrote poems about Harmon Killebrew, Andy Pettitte, and Mark “The Bird” Fidrych. In today’s Times Sports Section, Fidrych is counted among the flameouts, the one-hit wonders — but wait, he was injured; and wait, he was killed. Plus, what a season. Plus, we’re all one-hit wonders.
