– Griffith Stadium with Goose Goslin Standing on the Dugout Steps,
Washington, DC, September 1928
The photograph does what photographs do, fills in
the box score: in the stands behind Goslin, my grandparents
peer down from their patronage seats, eyes pleased by his fine
form in white flannel edged in red. These are the halcyon days
of breathed-in nicotine during and whiskey after the game, one
World War finished, the next, unimaginable. He’s leaning over,
one cleated foot on a higher step and one hand cupped around
a just-lit cigarette. Goose’s nickname came from the flummoxed
flapping of his long arms as he chased fly balls; here, he is calm,
a few swings away from the batting title he’ll win that month.
Upright, my grandfather sits in his buttoned-up overcoat, spruce
in his fedora, my grandmother chic in a cloche hat and matching
jacket. Their love of baseball will skip right over their son, my father,
like a ground ball taking a bad hop and coming right through
the airwaves in the 1960s when I grow up listening to the Senators,
first in our hearts, last in the American League, my ear pressed
to my tan transistor radio.