Baseball Is

My father handing cash to the old ushers
at Yankee Stadium for better seats,
my old four fingered Stan Musial mitt.
Now I have a Whitey Ford glove,
but you know it doesn't matter.
I used to flip cards in the schoolyard
plenty of Mickey Mantles—
Elston Howards—
the names for me like Greek gods.
Studying the cards, chewing the gum,
loving the uniforms—
pretending to be a play by play
radio broadcaster on reel to reel.
Now I ignore the players
and teams and don't care about
the salaries and trades and standings
and records and statistics.
What I care about is you know
what to expect.
It is the theater and drama and sky
of the game that means everything.
Baseball is me and my sons
just like me and my dad
in the theater of it—
having catches in the backyard,
our mitts with some
ball player's name wearing off.

Copyright © 2006 Dan Sklar All rights reserved
from Spitball
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission