CHRIST
IN WINTER: Reflections on Faith and Life For the Years of Winter…
FROSTY AND THE BABE [W, 3-28-18]
In the spring, an old
man’s fancy turns to baseball. Spring training time is over. Next year is here.
Any team can go all the way to World Series victory. Sort of like contemplating
heaven. So I thought it appropriate to bring out of winter’s back room a
baseball poem I have posted here before.
When Hofstra University
hosted a conference to celebrate the 100th birth of Babe Ruth, they
asked for poems about the Babe. I had just read a statement by Robert Frost in
“Sports Illustrated” that “One of my
unfulfilled promises on earth was to my fellow in art, Alfred Kreyemborg, to
write a poem about a ball batted so hard by Babe Ruth that it never came back,
but got to going round and round the world like a satellite.” So I wrote the
following poem to fulfill Frost’s promise, sort of. It was read at the
conference. Hofstra asked me to come read it myself, but I could not because it
conflicted with an Academy of Parish Clergy meeting. [For some strange reason I
used to think that being a preacher was more important than being a baseball
poet.]
“For Alfred,
From Bob and the Babe, at Last”
The Bambino’s team was
mighty,
Nine stories full of fame,
DiMaggio and Gehrig,
Masters of the game.
Lazzeri, Dickey, Berra,
Made pitchers weep at
night.
Ruffing, Ford and Hoyt,
They were a fearsome
sight.
Yes, Babe’s team, it was
mighty,
All members of the Hall,
But they’d never faced old
Frosty,
That master of the ball.
Frosty heaved it with a
sentence,
Frosty hurled it with a
word.
When Frosty threw the
horsehide
It split lumber like a
sword.
Frosty turned his back on
walls,
Unlovable as sin,
Frosty turned and faced
home plate,
Where they have to take
you in.
He took the road less
traveled,
As he stopped beside the
wood,
Then he turned and faced
the platter,
Where the Babe in splendor
stood.
The Babe was rapt and
ready,
He gave his hat a tip.
Three runners took their
leads,
On the bat Babe took his
grip.
Babe pointed to the
outfield,
His finger to the sky,
Far beyond the fences,
To the clouds away up
high.
Frosty rhymed the
spheroid.
Babe took a mighty swing.
The ball was split in even
halves,
It was an awesome thing.
Half soared beyond the fences,
Half fell into the mitt.
Half the ball was called a
strike,
Half was a home run hit.
Babe trotted ‘round the
bases,
As half the ball kept
climbin’
Frosty dipped his pen to
fans,
Threw verse upon the
diamond.
One a poet with the
lumber,
One a poet with the phrase
One his bat all full of
thunder,
One his arm all full of
grace.
JRMcF
This was originally
published in Elysian Fields Quarterly
and is on the “Baseball Almanac” web
site at
http://www.baseball-almanac.com/poetry/frosty_and_the_babe.shtml
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