A
wet dishrag of a thing to care about, really. Staved time, spun from April’s
leadoff hope to October’s last licks. Midnight’s pinstripes are a dead dove streaked
with coffee, while airplanes dream up better weather. Doubles to left and
triples to right. Punchy with an inside-out swing, or a Butcher Boy with two on
and two out. And we care about the strangest things. The creased folds and worn
grooves of a pine-tar stained mitt. The faint sappy stink of a wet rosin bag.
Grandstand shadows creeping over the mound at twilight. Tobacco breath. The
light’s lumpy here and nobody robs it. Billy sighs from the dugout steps, “Sip
the water from tulips and take a moment to cry.” We’ve all got hocked
confidence and a million on the wrong team. Unie’s torn with feathers and the
sienna rubble of infield dirt. Going south for the summer while the north cries
hallelujah and stalks along on groomed grass. A truck driver’s son, a Rookie Of
The Year and an MVP, a backstop captain gone. I can’t wake up anymore. And
dad’s just a shadow in some desert shack. It’s all just one long sleepy streak
of Mondays. Swoop, lumber, prowl away from the herd. It was propellers and the engine's drone, and a sky bluer than any damn thing I’d ever seen. The
maples are all on fire. Hell. So much is lost in so little. Falling asleep to
the sound of a sellout crowd while Ohio calls my name, and missing doesn’t do
much good, still, or maybe just at last. No more bags to pack. No more squats
behind the dish. No more putting down the signs. No more weepy skies of another
off season. No more pop ups, scrambling after bunts, foul tips in the mask, or
collisions at the plate. No more rainouts in the belly of my determined soul.
There’s just an empty space on the lineup card where my name used to go. I’ve
got a bag of sunflower seeds in my back pocket, spikes hung over a shoulder, a
blue-and-white-checkered shirt on, and some black slopped under my eyes. Tell
my wife, Ich liebe dich. There is no here, forever stalled in a touch-and-go
over a rain-slick runway. Trust me. There is no longer a thing to be afraid of.
I’m moving on. And maybe in some somewhere that’s never a there or a here to
get to, well beyond the hills of Canton and the char marks of who I was,
there’ll be a day-night doubleheader, Neil Diamond blasting over the PA, some
pepper with Pinella and Murcer, a game of catch that never ends, and a standing
ovation just for me.
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