1919 World Series - Black Sox Scandal

Wikipedia - "The 1919 World Series matched the American League champion Chicago White Sox against the National League champion Cincinnati Reds. Although most World Series have been of the best-of-seven format, the 1919 World Series was a best-of-nine series (along with 1903, 1920, and 1921). Baseball decided to try the best-of-nine format partly to increase popularity of the sport and partly to generate more revenue. The events of the series are often associated with the Black Sox Scandal, when several members of the Chicago franchise conspired with gamblers to throw World Series games."
Wikipedia - 1919 World Series, W - Black Sox Scandal, YouTube - 1919 World Series Footage White Sox vs Reds, Wage Setting and the 1919 Black Sox Baseball Scandal (Jean Shepherd), Black Sox Scandal

Charles North

"As the season (don’t ask what season: the season) is about to open, at last, as Johan Santana gets ready to win 25 games, as Jose Reyes prepares to play all 162 games (plus the post-season), as David Wright gets set for 35 homers, as Jenrry Mejia and Ike Davis step into our dreams of rookie glory – ah, let it all roll out! – as the whole team lines up for kisses on the forehead, what better time to turn our attention to Charles North’s Complete Lineups? Answer: No better time, right now, before Oliver Perez goes on the DL again. The lineup poems were introduced in Charles’ first book, in 1972, and new ones have appeared in magazines and books over the years. Last year, we brought them all together in one beautiful little book, with art by Paula North, a key member of the coaching staff from the beginning. The book has received some very nice reviews in poetry publications – and on MLB.com. - Robert Hershon"
The Best American Poetry, Wikipedia, EPC, amazon

The 1928 Negro Leagues – The Two Leagues

Rickwood Field – Still used today
"Teams ordered roughly by their league success, except for Homestead, which never joined the ECL, but remained independent, playing mostly semi-pro teams while barnstorming through Pennsylvania. However, Homestead did also play against most of the ECL teams and some NNL teams, and was definitely a top caliber major eastern team. The Cuban Stars were a traveling team, with no home city in the U.S. The Brooklyn Royal Giants were effectively a traveling team also, as owner Nat Strong’s white semi-pro Bushwicks team received most of the home dates at Brooklyn’s Dexter Park.'
Seamheads - 1, Seamheads - 2

Jilly Dybka - "Like a Wild Pitch"

Watching the pitching and hitting on game day,
my hair damp underneath my cap,
I hear the melody of bats.
Baseballs travel through space, full of voice.
Full of ghosts and sense-sound fantasy.
For a moment, a homer hangs in the air,
then sails past the old-timers.
Past the rookies.
The stadium can barely contain their youth.

"The Silent Season of a Hero" - Gay Talese, Esquire, July 1966

"IT WAS NOT quite spring, the silent season before the search for salmon, and the old fishermen of San Francisco were either painting their boats or repairing their nets along the pier or sitting in the sun talking quietly among themselves, watching the tourists come and go, and smiling, now, as a pretty girl paused to take their picture. She was about 25, healthy and blue-eyed and wearing a turtleneck sweater, and she had long, flowing blonde hair that she brushed back a few times before clicking her camera. The fishermen, looking at her, made admiring comments, but she did not understand because they spoke a Sicilian dialect; nor did she understand the tall gray-haired man in a dark suit who stood watching her from behind a big bay window on the second floor of DiMaggio's Restaurant that overlooks the pier. ..."
Gay Talese, Esquire, July 1966

1960 World Series: New York Yankees vs Pittsburgh Pirates

YouTube - 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7

Michael Palmer - "Prose 43"

The minotaur was on second base. The
lower part wanted to steat but the rest
seemed to hesitate. The reliever was
still wet from the sea; he was trying
to hold it together with a string
stretched from his right foot sixty
feet and six inches to the plate. His
receiver waited there on one knee with
his left arm extended and the gloved
hand raised. But his eyes kept shifting
from the string to the runner on second,
half bull and half man, and back again.
After a while he asked for time out and
headed toward the mound.

Kirby Puckett

Wikipedia - "Kirby Puckett (March 14, 1960 – March 6, 2006) was a Major League Baseball center fielder. He played his entire 12-year baseball career with the Minnesota Twins (1984-1995). He is the Twins franchise's all-time leader (1961–present) in career hits, runs, doubles and total bases. His .318 career batting average was the highest by any right-handed American League batter in the second half of the 20th century."
Wikipedia, Baseball Reference

Bruce Lader - "In the World Series of Jazz"

The pitcher walks straight ahead to the mound,
taps his foot in front of the stand,
licks the reed a taste or two
looks in for a sign and
before breathing a sound
lets the rhythm grab him,
gets into a groove.

The monster in the lineup
points the club, ready to swing the charts
like Bechet, Prez, and Benny,
or hard bop the ball out of the park
like Bird, sensing vibes the hurler phrases
from his medley of instant surprises

but the dot blows by, a goose egg of smoke
burning the catcher's mitt,
and then a Kansas City slider
side-slips the plate, explodes runs of blues.

The joint of eighty thousand plus
jumps like grasshoppers in a field of butterflies,
logic laid out,
as the cat tempts a half-speed change,
a curve bridged above his wheelhouse
like a slow boat to China, but the batter,
cool as Monk, Gerry, and Chet,
doesn't chase the quote.

The players are off their benches
as the southpaw winds, spins loose
a dexterous swallow of joy, the agile
turnaround of a tune
to take us out.

Amorak Huey - "Carver and Cheever Watch the Bucky Dent Game in a Bar in Chicago, October 2, 1978"

They're in town to read at a museum,
Carver fresh in love and no longer drinking.
Cheever doesn't understand that thinking.
Ray's happy to back Johnís team
though he's never cared much for the game.
Cheever drinks and roots as if he's making
notes for a speech, saying witty things
like All literary men are Red Sox fans,
and when that pissant little shortstop
knocks a fastball up and over Yaz's head
Cheever stands to go and says:
I've seen enough—the death of hope,
the home run that broke New England's back,
and Ray, by God, I've written my last book.

Pitcher

Wikipedia - "In baseball, the pitcher is the player who throws the baseball from the pitcher's mound toward the catcher to begin each play, with the goal of retiring a batter who attempts to either make contact with it or draw a walk. In the numbering system used to record defensive plays, the pitcher is assigned the number 1. In the National League and the Japanese Central League, the pitcher also bats. Starting in 1973 with the American League and spreading throughout the 1980s and 1990s, the hitting duties of the pitcher have generally been given over to the position of designated hitter, a cause of some controversy."
Wikipedia

Steven Winn - "Pitcher Hitting a Triple"

The last man who was actually there
passes away in a Boston hospital,
dying words for anyone, anywhere
with the patient wherewithal
to listen to an oldster exaggerate
how huge the hitters, fast the pitch,
from his seat behind home plate,
so close, he saw the seam, the stitch.

His final breath, a skein of history
splits like the fingers of a mitt,
leaves it to books, to mystery,
to curse, to explain the myth of it.
A thousand ways to die or lose,
so goes the one who brought the news.

Daniel Bronson - "Satchel Paige Takes Off His Pitcher's Mask"

I threw a pea at your knee,
A blur past your slur.
I smiled through the years,
Knowing guile was my mate—
Slipped my curve by your fears,
Blew my heat past your hate.
Even so,
We both know
That you cheated me.