Back in the saddle again

Hello again baseball fans out there in cyberspace.  It’s been a while, but the combination of my girlfriend being in town for a few days and having been on the road immediately preceding said visit has occupied most of my time away from the park recently.  In the meantime I have thrown twice.  The first of my two appearances started off inauspiciously with a couple of walks, but the end result of two innings with no runs allowed was satisfying nonetheless.  My other outing was frustrating to the extreme because I threw the ball very well and used all my pitches effectively, but gave up a run on a groundball base hit and a flare hit to right that was played into a double.  To keep things in perspective I keep reminding myself that I didn’t have a great statistical start to last season either, but that I had an ERA twice as high twice as deep into the season and still managed to have a productive year.  In other news, the Akron Aeros just keep winning.  We’re 8-2 in our last 10 games and 14-4 overall to this point, and we seem to win in just about every conceivable fashion.  We out pitched teams, blown teams out, come from behind, won sloppy, out hit teams, taken advantage of errors…  Thus far we have basically done exactly what it takes to win the game we’re playing and not left ourselves much margin for error, but wins are wins are wins.  I’ll be back with more soon, probably in a couple days when we head back out on the road, but for now I’ll leave you with a poem in what appears to be my final installment promoting National Poetry Month.

 

Signs by Stephen Dunn

 

Earlier, a slow child in the vicinity

of a Slow Children Sign, a boy

just taking his time, his book bag

weighing him down, and now–

driving past Caution: Falling

Rock Zone–an actual fallen rock

right in the middle of the Interstate!

I call 911, report it–the danger–

one loose rock suggesting many,

some hilltop family of them

finally about to become unglued.

 

I say the signs have started to come true,

and laugh, but the operator is serious,

only wants to know where, and who.

I give her the hard facts, the everything

she wants.  I’m a good citizen today.

Soon I’ll even stop at Stop,

 

Then at red stop again, always careful

about my braveries.  Only late at night,

nobody around, have I gunned it,

gone right on through, felt the outlaw

in me stir, smiled that inward smile.

 

Truth is, I’d be happy in this world

to be quietly significant

like a good editor.

I’d like to improve Slow Children,

for example, by putting in

that comma where it belongs.

 

I’m almost home.  The increase in Jesus

bumper stickers has been telling me so.

At Finzel near Little Savage in big letters

at the end of a driveway: Beware Dog.,

and there he is, the Beware Dog

halfway between the house and the road,

sleeping or waiting, I’ll never know.