tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19106928.post4294881370348455991..comments2024-02-29T02:37:34.896-06:00Comments on Ivebeenreadinglately: October's about more than ghosts—it's about baseball, too!Levi Stahlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11094919454842047688noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19106928.post-66579685570865744462007-12-27T19:22:00.000-06:002007-12-27T19:22:00.000-06:00Thanks for the poem, Anonymous! It brings back tha...Thanks for the poem, Anonymous! It brings back that strangely memorable summer of '88 strongly. <BR/><BR/>I've been pleasantly surprised by how many people left poems in the comments to the piece at the Poetry Foundation's site.Levi Stahlhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11094919454842047688noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19106928.post-79455614463131023952007-10-31T17:55:00.000-05:002007-10-31T17:55:00.000-05:00Well done Octoberscare. I liked especially the qou...Well done Octoberscare. I liked especially the qoute from Murial Spark. . .Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19106928.post-4421502918324655382007-10-27T16:52:00.000-05:002007-10-27T16:52:00.000-05:00Great Article, Levi.I thought you might enjoy this...Great Article, Levi.<BR/>I thought you might enjoy this.<BR/><BR/><BR/>Dodger Blue<BR/><BR/>When I came back from the East last autumn I felt that I wanted the world to be in uniform and at a sort of moral attention forever . . . it was an extraordinary gift for hope, a romantic readiness.<BR/> –F. Scott Fitzgerald The Great Gatsby<BR/><BR/>In the fall of 1988, Orel Hershiser’s curve ball<BR/>Set like a white sun on the High Sierras: 59.<BR/>The 0's burned the late summer scoreboard lines<BR/>Like a moonrise over Chavez Ravine. He played shadow-ball.<BR/>The box scores read like early Hemingway;<BR/>Papa told me how he’d followed DiMaggio’s<BR/>In ‘41. The Mets went down in seven, cocksure,<BR/>With noses still red from their 86'd lady.<BR/>Then, Gibson shoe-strung a Roy Hobbs<BR/>On Eckersley’s back door slider: “Wonder-Boy.”<BR/>I cried myself golden to sleep, dreaming Dodger Dogs<BR/>And Vin Scully’s call: “the impossible...” was pure joy. <BR/>The Los Angeles Times made the Bash-Brothers an analogue<BR/>To Goliath. Miracles were dime wishes off the Hoover dam, toys.<BR/><BR/>That was when I was 10 and Brooklyn sounded like a river<BR/>I’d fish with my father. Later, we moved East,<BR/>And I learned that Walter O’Malley was Hitler<BR/>In Flatbush, Gravesend and through Kings County’s streets.<BR/>They said it was like a death in the family<BR/>When the Dodger’s went West. The “Sym-Phony”<BR/>Did not play when they cremated Ebbet’s Field. Jackie<BR/>Cleaned his locker out, sliding into the Sunuvabitch’s money<BR/>With his spikes up, to remind him of the color of blood.<BR/>I was 23 and living in New York– the old Capitol– <BR/>Before I ever saw Willie’s catch-in the-rye, gloved<BR/>Over his shoulder, in deep center of the old Polo<BR/>Grounds. I thought of the Giants ‘89 Series,<BR/>The earthquake and the aftershocks through the games.<BR/><BR/>Canseco and McGuire were like Greek gods<BR/>That year. Orel’s curve balls became a fever dream,<BR/>And baseball turned into a game of shadows. <BR/>Three years after McGuire and Sosa’s stadium Revival<BR/>Tour led the masses back to the pastime, <BR/>Barry Bonds passed Babe Ruth, tying Maris’ 61*.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com