This poem is on page 56 of my book, Lines of Flight (Able Muse Press, 2011).
View Mazeroski's home run HERE
Bottom
of the Ninth
Mid-afternoon,
church over, Dad and I
settled in the
living room to read
the Sunday paper
with its stout supply
of inserts. He
supposed (and I agreed)
there’d be no war—
advisers would advise,
Nixon would
trounce Kennedy, of course
Luthuli’d never
win the Nobel Prize.
With Mazeroski’s
brilliant tour de force
undreamed of,
weeks away, Dad coolly aced
the crossword, as
I scanned the comic strips,
the fashion pages
and the book reviews.
In time, this
confidence would prove misplaced,
as often happens
with apprenticeships.
We were so sure
our Yankees couldn’t lose.
And yes, the Yanks lost in 1960. And in 1975.