BEFORE SOCCER MOMS

Before soccer moms took over the playing field,
before Little League had more rules than players,
I remember stickball games in the old neighborhood.
We took our white tee shirts and drew numbers on them,
which instantly made us a ball players and a ball team.
Bobby Chiella was our captain; he played short, I, first,
as we challenged other Brooklyn teams.
On my best day, I went three for four,
even bouncing one over the fence for a double.
I tried mightily to blast every ball out of the park,
just like my Dodger heroes did on a daily basis.
This is for the kid in all of us,
the one who is older now,
the one who would now have trouble
just jogging around the bases,
the one who still
mentally picks up his glove,
his hockey stick, his old football jersey,
and thinks of the good old days.
It doesn’t matter whether
he has played organized sports,
or remembers hanging with his friends,
just tossing a ball around.
We are the stuff, in pinstripes,
our dreams are made of.