Elysian Fields Quarterly - The Baseball Review

BASEBALL POETRY

Baseball Enlightenment
By John Poff

When you are 26 years old and have zero hits
		in your 5 pinch-hit appearances in the Major Leagues
	and you are playing for the Phillies in '79 when they drew
	over 30,000 for every home game despite finishing fourth
		in the division
and Dickie Noles has just pitched 9 beautiful shutout innings
	and you are sent up to pinchhit for him with 2 outs
		in the bottom of the ninth and the score tied 0-0 and
			the bases are empty
and Bruce Sutter is pitching for the Cubs and this was one
	of those years he was virtually unhittable
and you think there may be something funny about this business
	of playing in the Big Leagues but you can't quite put
		your finger on it—
			maybe it's the Astroturf, maybe it's the ghost of
			Josh Gibson, maybe it's just you, or maybe it's
			something else altogether—
	and presumably the one thing you can do now that will make
		everything clear is hit a home run but what, really,
			are the odds?
And as your name is announced over the loudspeakers, amidst
	these 30,000 people, the only sound you hear is the beer vendors
		hawking their waresóthat old shuffle and cry:
			that is the sound of one hand clapping
–EFQ

JOHN POFF lives somewhere in the upper Midwest (not Minnesota!) where he is a farmer, acupuncturist, and schoolteacher. He played professional baseball for eight years, including brief appearances in the majors with the Phillies and Brewers.

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