SEEN FROM SECOND BASE

Gather my children and you shall learn
A family story that’s slipped from discern.
We are all Blakes (your dad’s no exception),
We’ve never made history, yet that’s a deception,

For in Mudville one day, back in eighteen eighty-eight,
Your very own father got stuck on a plate.
It thrust him into poetry, now known far and wide,
Else the name Jimmy Blake would not have survived.

So although Mudville lost when mighty Casey struck out,
And I wasn’t driven home by that most boastful lout,
Some poet named Thayer took into his head
To describe that last inning, those moments of dread,

When after I doubled, pushing Flynn clear to third,
The crowd got excited, hopes now undeterred,
And Casey, at bat, watched a fastball fly by
Then ignored yet the next one, with scorn in his eye.

When finally he swung and I died on my base,
The sun wasn’t shining, but I’d soon gain my place
In poetry’s history, a different hall of fame
Where a not-so-good player could win at the game.