At Yankee Stadium

At Yankee Stadium

By Rick K. Smith

Yeah, I saw DiMaggio play in center.

Dad told me his spikes were extra long

so he wouldn’t tip over if he dozed off

when guys like Reynolds or Raschi

were on the mound.

And I saw Mantle, a 19 year old kid,

beat out a bunt as a pinch hitter

in his rookie year.

 

Woodling, Bauer, Mize, Coleman,

Rizzuto and Dr. Bobby Brown.

They couldn’t lose.

 

But my guys were Frank Leja,

the bonus baby who only got 4 at bats

for his $100,000. And Tommy Carroll,

another one of those whom no one remembers.

Charlie Silvera, back up for Yogi Berra;

he’d get maybe 80 at bats all year,

hit .320 and still couldn’t crack

the lineup.

What about Jim Brideweser,

utility infielder who tripled one afternoon

and was optioned to the minors

the next day.

Cliff Mapes hit an inside-the-park homer,

the only one I’ve ever seen in person.

He was in his twilight then.

When your legs start to go,

I guess you hope for a double.

You actually want the outfielder

to cut off your liner before it splits the gap

and rolls to the wall.

Running out a triple will wear you down.

I can only wonder what Mapes was thinking

Stumbling into the visitors’ dugout,

gasping for air after scoring the only run

for his lowly St. Louis Browns

on another bright and beautiful day

at Yankee Stadium

where once again the Bronx Bombers

would not need to swing

in the bottom of the ninth.

Excerpt from Donald Hall

From the Poetry Foundation's website:

In a 1985 essay, Donald Hall describes the sport’s most primal form: “Baseball is fathers and sons playing catch, the long arc of the years between.” Hall reminds us that as much as baseball and poetry are concerned with an unbroken tradition, they also share a devotion to commemorating specific, crystalline moments. Baseball is a game of punctuated stillness, of dramatic seconds surrounded by casual hours. The quiet intervals of nothingness between pitches make up most of the time spent watching a game . . . but then the pitcher glares in at home—and in “The Baseball Players” (1981), Hall explains what happens next:

Against the bright

  grass the white-knickered

  players tense, seize,

  and attend. 

A moment

  ago, outfielders

  and infielders adjusted

  their clothing, glanced

  at the sun and settled

  forward, hands on knees;

  the pitcher walked back

  of the hill, established

  his cap and returned;

  the catcher twitched

  a forefinger;

 the batter

  rotated his bat

  in a slow circle. 
 

But now

  they pause: 

wary,

  exact, suspended—