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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.