On Baseball

“Why do you like baseball so much?” my step-son asked.
My self-conscious, stumbling answer:
To love a team from childhood,
to care so much about the players…to follow every game…
“I know that,” he said impatiently,
“but I don’t remember you always liking it so much.”
I always did, I replied, not willing to say mor
knowing he could not understand.
He who never seemed to care who I was,
where I came from, or to know my story.
He knew nothing of what I liked or did not like
before he entered my world and I entered his.
I’m only a road that leads to his father,
an occasional home-cooked meal, a home at the holidays.
He turned away anyway bored with my answer. Conversation over.
His question stayed with me because I knew the real answer.
I think of the little girl wearing a baseball cap,
clutching Dad’s old catcher’s mitt,
the old leather scent of it, wearing her favorite red sneakers,
spiral notebook in hand, keeping score.
The snowy television screen and the aluminum foil rabbit ears.
While Yaz hit homeruns, before Tony C. got beaned,
and Jim Lonborg charmed the hitters into making outs.
(Her first crush – Gentleman Jim.)
First she loved baseball because of the fantasy.
She wanted to play; to be a boy running on the field.
Then she wanted to be the first girl to play in the major leagues.
When that passed, she just wanted to marry one.
Those intriguing man/boys in baseball pants.
Time passed, she was no longer intrigued.
A child’s dream died replaced by real life things.
But the game lived on in the background like the soundtrack of a movie.
She turned away but checked the papers for the scores,
listened on lazy weekend afternoons.
Saw Fred Lynn and Dwight Evans,
saw poor Bill Buckner make his untimely gaff,
Nomar’s fidgets and twitches. Manny being Manny.
Drawn in by the charisma of Johnny Damon.
His grand slam still rising. The stolen base.
They captured a trophy that her father did not get to see.
She gave only a part of herself until the summer of surgeries
and the agonizing wait for results.
She turned on the television because she could do nothing else,
and there it was again.
Even when the scars healed and the results were all good;
Even when the team was broken and humiliated in defeat and failure,
She knew their scars would heal, too, and she would be there.
The little girl in red sneakers who always loved the game.