Baseball Echoes
written by: roger turner
@titansdad
Does anyone remember when
Baseball fields were full
When you always saw a hundred kids pitch
When you drove by every school
Pick-up games of baseball
On every field, you’d pass
But now the only scrub that’s there
Is just overgrown, clumpy grass
I drove on by a park today
One that I used to play baseball on
The backstop was all broken
And the dugouts, they were gone
The field was full of garbage
Weeds and echos of the past
I remembered times between the lines
With a long forgotten cast
“HEY MISTER…MOVE…WE’RE PLAYING HERE”
“CAN’T YOU MOVE SO WE CAN PLAY?”
“HEY BATTER, BATTER, SWING NOW BATTER”
“YOU’LL NOT GET A HIT TODAY”
I’d crossed into a baseball game
One from many years before
The ghosts of players long deceased
Were still playing here some more
I crossed back to the dugouts
Stepped behind and they were gone
But, as I stepped back to the old coaches box
I could hear their haunting song
“HEY BATTER, BATTER, BATTER, SWING”
“WE WANT A PITCHER, NOT A BELLYITCHER”
“HEY BATTER, BATTER, BATTER, SWING”
“WE WANT A PITCHER, NOT A BELLYITCHER”
I sat there watching the game take place
On a field not worth a damn
At least not in the present time
Then a kid hit a grand slam
He touched them all as he ran by
I saw it plain as day
The only thing I wished was that
I could join them and play
“HEY MISTER, STAND ON HOME PLATE”
“THEN COME WALK OUT TO THE MOUND”
“WE KNOW YOU WANT TO JOIN US”
“WE KNOW IT’S HALLOWED GROUND”
I did the tasks directed
I joined the players from ago
And as I ran up to the rubber
I went as fast as I could go
I could feel myself get younger
I didn’t know if it was real
But, they say as you get older
You’re just as young as you may feel
I pitched two good strong innings
Then the echoes chose to fade
I knew it was just imagination
Of long lost players I had made
“COME BACK AGAIN TOMORROW”
“YOU CAN THROW THAT PELLET KID!”
“WE’VE GOT TO GET ON HOME NOW”
and…go back…you know I did!
NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR:
After passing by so many old vacant soccer and baseball fields, left overgrown and unused, that I used to play. I just dreamed that the children who once played there over the years, left some form of energy there, like the ghosts in a James Lumbers painting. I crossed the lines and the game was on…I’ll be back again tomorrow, I have to ice my arm now.
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