BAD TIMING

Some people are just born too soon.
Like Ol’ Satch, who was legendary,
larger than life in thousands of games,
stuck in the Negro Leagues with Josh Gibson,
before crossing the color barrier Jackie finally broke.
The majors’ oldest rookie at 42
still confounded baseball’s best white batters
like Joe DiMaggio and Rogers Hornsby
with his hesitation pitch til he was 59.

In Bible lore, Genesis 19, Lot hastened from Sodom,
but if only he had been a baseball fan
or had been born much later,
his nameless wife could have heeded Paige’s advice:
“Don’t look back. Something might be gaining on you”
and maybe avoided becoming so much salt.