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Dear Red, Good day for ball. The cut grass, hot dogs and warm peanuts have by now become cliche. If the postcard could convey these then, perhaps, you too would be here. I never played well or with much style. Though there was a time when I believed I was Satchel Paige. Big chalk square on side of our brown house. I tried to be Satchel, high kick, motion of a taut spring uncoiling, pitching a synthetic leather baseball until it wasn't a ball anymore. My father knows the game, quite a bat in his day. He tells me how the young Satchel was unhittable, how he had too much show for the show. How beautiful he must have been. These fellows who took the hill today have neither the arm nor the style. At 42 he broke into the bigs, behind Robinson, pitched 'til he was 59. A young Satchel would've been a sight. To see those lily white Jim Crows swing at the third and shake their heads. Here's wishing you a good day. Tomorrow there will be another game. I will think of you, Satchel, his high leg kick, and the angry noise his fastball must've made. Adios, Be Well A P.S. Ever notice how baseball is a metaphor for everything, even the history we wish we could forget rather than regret. Here's wishing you three in the zone and all the style of an old man with a young arm. |
