In the summer of 1975,
the grass along Eldridge Park field
‘neath the old wooden roller coaster
was patchy, tall in places, thin in others -
but to us, it was emerald, endless,
a kingdom under the slow, benevolent sun.
I crouched behind the plate,
the mask pressed to my face,
the leather of my mitt
a second heartbeat in my hand.
Every pitch a small prayer -
the ball striking like certainty,
dust lifting into the light.
Dad was at the helm of PBA,
steady as the Chemung River
as it curved through our town -
quiet, inevitable,
a kind of tide that carried us forward.
He never raised his voice;
he didn’t need to.
We leaned toward him
like sunflowers lean to the sun.
Dimon & Bacon stood opposite -
their yellow and white
bright as warning flags -
but we, navy and white,
were the deeper color of water,
and that day the current was ours.
Among us were futures we could not name:
three who would be cheered in great arenas,
one who would vanish into prison shadows,
another who would walk those corridors
with keys at his belt.
And the girl -
the first girl -
her stance sure, her swing clean,
a herald of what was coming.
She carried with her
the glimmer of a name
the whole world would come to know.
But that summer,
she was only ours,
because my father, with a simple nod,
made it so.
We thought we were kings of Elmira,
and for a time, we were.
At Lib’s Supper Club,
the chandeliers hung low,
and the tables steamed
with sauce and pride.
They called our names,
placed into our hands
the small, shining crowns of trophies.
Dad and I side by side,
two All-Stars,
as though joy itself
had taken a chair at our table.
And even now,
when memory calls me back,
I hear the crack of the bat,
the murmuring river,
the cheer that rose like birds into evening -
and I think:
perhaps the greatest victory was not the winning,
but the way the world, just then,
seemed to open like a field in sunlight,
and let us belong to it,
together.
GBS
1993
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