Update: When I posted this earlier today, I did so with the sonnet using an unacceptable mixed metaphor that a fellow-blogger kindly brought to my attention. The editor side of my brain knew using fumble in a poem about baseball was incorrect (error being the proper term), but my creative side ignored the critique! Feeling the uncomfortable residue of egg on my face, I’ve made the necessary change! (The words work hard, but sometimes the boss is stubbornly wrong!) My thanks to doobster418 at mindfuldigressions.com for his generous input!
With College Football in its final wind-down and a Super Bowl countdown bringing us less than 30 days till game day, some sports fans are already anxious for the start of spring training. Growing up in a baseball town (St. Louis), I enjoyed knowing something in my younger years about the Cardinals … much less as I got older and then left home. (That probably moves me into the not-really-a-fan category, doesn’t it?)
As a youngster, though, I played baseball almost everyday with my brothers … all summer long. My older brother is two years older, my younger brother eighteen months younger, and we spent lots of time together in those days. Yes, I was definitely a tomboy.
Because we played baseball together, I learned how to throw properly, I became a decent batter and an excellent fielder. I practiced frequently so as to avoid any legitimate criticisms that I “played like a girl.” Other boys in the neighborhood joined us on the back lot for games, but I don’t remember any other girl being in the company.
Unlike my brothers, my interest in baseball cards was nil. But I managed to absorb some of their talk about players on the Cardinals team, so I knew who the players were and what positions they played. The concept of batting averages and other intricacies were lost on me, but I knew enough about the best players to use their names in our back-lot games and sound reasonably well-informed … for a girl!
Occasionally, I’m a bit wistful for bygone days when it was the children who organized enough players to field opposing teams, arranged a place to play and proceeded with their games − completely apart from adult supervision. Films about sandlot baseball evoke my memories of pleasant days at play.
Today, thinking about the conclusion of another football season, I thought this sonnet would be an appropriate poem to share. I still enjoy “playing catch” but I do it differently than when I was a child.
