inspiration: catching it...

oh, i would like this job.

chasing the shot, catching the moment, the way corey simpkin does here.

all photos by corey simpkin via the ny daily news.

originally published october 5, 2011, on nydailynews.com

see the fun, full gallery by the ny daily news staff...

read a good poem: baseball

we're not even a week into april and already i'm in a rut.
is anyone else feeling this?
if so, how do we break out?

i've spent the day drinking lots of coffee, reviewing photos, taking short walks, reminding myself of all the fun spring things, like...cleaning (ok, not actually fun but the afterglow is good?), buds blossoming... and baseball (though based on how my team blew up last night i'm not sure if watching baseball is going to help or hurt my mood. but let's go with help, for now. it's only the first day).

april is also national poetry month. i think that's a fine thing!

in the spirit of opening day league-wide, here's one from gail mazur:

phillies at nationals. april 5, 2010.
photo by greg fiume/getty images via yahoo!sports

Baseball

The game of baseball is not a metaphor

and I know it’s not really life.

The chalky green diamond, the lovely

dusty brown lanes I see from airplanes

multiplying around the cities

are only neat playing fields.

Their structure is not the frame

of history carved out of forest,

that is not what I see on my ascent.

And down in the stadium,

the veteran catcher guiding the young

pitcher through the innings, the line

of concentration between them,

that delicate filament is not

like the way you are helping me,

only it reminds me when I strain

for analogies, the way a rookie strains

for perfection, and the veteran,

in his wisdom, seems to promise it,

it glows from his upheld glove,

and the man in front of me

in the grandstand, drinking banana

daiquiris from a thermos,

continuing through a whole dinner

to the aromatic cigar even as our team

is shut out, nearly hitless, he is

not like the farmer that Auden speaks

of in Breughel’s Icarus,

or the four inevitable woman-hating

drunkards, yelling, hugging

each other and moving up and down

continuously for more beer

and the young wife trying to understand

what a full count could be

to please her husband happy in

his old dreams, or the little boy

in the Yankees cap already nodding

off to sleep against his father,

program and popcorn memories

sliding into the future,

and the old woman from Lincoln, Maine,

screaming at the Yankee slugger

with wounded knees to break his leg

this is not a microcosm,

not even a slice of life

and the terrible slumps,

when the greatest hitter mysteriously

goes hitless for weeks, or

the pitcher’s stuff is all junk

who threw like a magician all last month,

or the days when our guys look

like Sennett cops, slipping, bumping

each other, then suddenly, the play

that wasn’t humanly possible, the Kid

we know isn’t ready for the big leagues,

leaps into the air to catch a ball

that should have gone downtown,

and coming off the field is hugged

and bottom-slapped by the sudden

sorcerers, the winning team

the question of what makes a man

slump when his form, his eye,

his power aren’t to blame, this isn’t

like the bad luck that hounds us,

and his frustration in the games

not like our deep rage

for disappointing ourselves

the ball park is an artifact,

manicured, safe, “scene in an Easter egg”,

and the order of the ball game,

the firm structure with the mystery

of accidents always contained,

not the wild field we wander in,

where I’m trying to recite the rules,

to repeat the statistics of the game,

and the wind keeps carrying my words away

-via the poetry foundation

probably the only good little moment, when all was said and done, from the yankees' first game of the season. curtis granderson's first at-bat/first home run as a yankee. photo: brita meng outzen/mlb.com via mlb.com

oh captain, my captain

"jeter" in brooklyn. may 2009.

let's go yankees.

sports wednesday: the POTUS' picks

president obama, making his selections. with andy katz.

photo by pete souza. via espn.com

it's been an all-sports wednesday for me, at least so far.

i've officially made my picks for this year's tournament! the POTUS and i are in complete agreement on the outcome in the WEST. we mostly agree on the MIDWEST, except I'm picking bc over michigan state. we definitely don't see eye-to-eye on the EAST and SOUTH, but that is because for better or worse (lately, worse), i'll always pick duke over nc. i have duke coming out of the east (assuming a pitt upset by ok state. haha! i did say upset) and oklahoma coming out of the south and winning the whole she-bang over louisville.

you're seeing the duke connection at work again, yes?

***

on an even lighter side, I happened to take a facebook quiz, "which MLB star are you?"

i don't take these quizzes very often (honestly!), but the subsequent comments from friends relating to this one were so...colorful! there were 6-8 mostly ridiculous questions along the lines of, "if you were a baseball player, would you be a superstar or an underrated team guy," "if you made a ton of money as a baseball player, would you bling yourself out of town or would you share it with the community?"

i am CURTIS GRANDERSON: "Your pretty well at every different aspect of the game - one hell of a balanced baseball player, but you're not the best. Still, you are also very nice, kind, and involved in the community." (i didn't bother correcting their grammar.)

photo courtesy of positivedetroit.blogspot.com. photographer unknown.

i was hoping i'd be bernie williams (humble, musically inclined, beautiful base runner...) but since he doesn't play anymore (except for pr in the wbc, which doesn't count) he was probably not an option.

but i rather like being curtis granderson: diligent, team player, global ambassador for MLB during the off-season, children's book author...i am officially a fan.

here's a link to an si feature, by albert chen, from a couple of seasons ago.

and the barack-etology video via espn.com.