Larry Eickstaedt - "Babe Ruth"

Ted Williams was my idol.
Ruthie and I were always the Boston Red Sox
for our farmyard baseball games
but I paid grudging respect
to Joe DiMaggio and the Yankees –
my brother's team.

Stories our dad told about the greats
like Honus Wagner, Ty Cobb, Christy Mathewson,
provided an historical feel for the game.

More important than school lessons –
lifetime batting averages, most runs,
most hits, most stolen bases –
were committed to memory.

And
At the top of the list, records
held by the most famous of Yankees,
the Babe –
most home runs in a season,
most in a lifetime –
were sacred.

In the afternoon of August 16, 1948,
a wave of silence,
like a sharp line drive,
swept the family when Mom
came out to the yard and announced
to Dad, my brother, sister, and me,
Babe Ruth died today!

That's all she said.
As though in a trance,
stunned by the news,
she slowly went back inside.

Time was suspended
like one of his towering home runs
and tears were near as I struggled
with unsettling feelings
like striking out with the bases loaded
in the bottom of the ninth.


Spitball: The Literary Baseball Magazine