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another baseball poem · by Rafi Kam
This one I wrote myself a few years back. I hadn’t noticed until now how obviously this was influenced by my memory of the poems from that Baseball Encyclopedia like No. 714 and the Great Mississipi.
Whip the Hide
Satchel Paige knew
that he could strike out,
pop out or put out
any MoFo he faced.
Which is why he wanted
the Babe so bad
It made him shiver
Just thinking about it.
Warming up before games
in Brownsville & Shreveport;
in Kenosha he saw him too,
and hit that mitt
a little harder.
Babe Ruth, who
owned a whole team of men,
and played them
up against those Negro boys,
who hailed from as far
as Missouri & Carolina.
Josh Gibson! He was
a fine Southern man.
And could swat that ball a mile,
With one black hand
behind his broad baby back.
Satch was relentless,
Against big black bastards like Gibson
And big white ones like Ruth.
Who never stepped to the plate
while his best men struck out,
one after the other.
Hall of Famers
like Hack Wilson and Babe Herman-
Poor subs for poor Satch.
And poor Ruth,
he must have shit himself.
Watching what could have been
and what would be
Whip the hide
of what always was.
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