Tim Peeler - "Jim Poole and the Baseball Life"

41 in ´36, you were still
sticking it in that outlaw league,
.399, 54 rib eyes with half a season to go,
then all those years playing and coaching
the Class D teams:
Mooresville, Statesville, Forest City,
having been there,
having felt the hot glow
of the big time, three years in Philly,
then those 50 homers in Nashville,
and too old for another crack.
A college star at sixteen,
born in the tobacco apple foothills,
in the bulls eye of Alexander,
how did you take it,
the year after year scraping by,
waiting for Connie Mack to call again,
for Branch Rickey to ring your bell
then there were the clinics,
players, umpires, off season cash,
a family to feed through hard times,
and we can only guess
who you really were,
what kind of captain,
and what crazy engine
kept you in the game
on first base, on the bench,
that dark faced teen who once
sat with his teammates
under pine trees in 1911,
looking at 64 more years of life,
49 more years of the greatest game.