Over there, past midnight on the other coast,
Long-suffering Knicks fans continued to boast:
“Greatest comeback ever! Are you kiddin’ me!
Makes you fuhgeddaboud 1973!”
Earlier in the afternoon, recalling a kid named Say Hey,
Willie Mays’ fans said 21-year-old Bryce made their day:
“Greatest comeback ever! A new Summer of Love!
Eldridge hits a walk-off granny past the Nats’ glove.”
The wind blows random:
Giants hit seven homers
Then Pete goes yard, twice.
My friend and I once coached Little League;
That was over a quarter century ago.
Now we meet at Ada’s Café for tea and cocoa.
Sometimes, when our creaky knees let us,
We bicycle past the old field to the café.
And then we talk—talk across all the bases.
Our boys are grown men now,
Leading lives of consequence, of consequences,
No longer pitching or catching.
My old friend shows me a fading photo from Wrigley Field:
Dodger great Maury Wills is in the middle—as if at second base—
Long arms around him and his kid brother—as if at third and first.
Remembering legendary Cubs announcer Jack Brickhouse,
He and I discuss the metaphysics of base hits.
I wonder, “Is a single better or a homer?”
He says, “A home run is spectacular.”
I frown. “I suppose chicks dig the long ball.”
He notices my reluctance to agree.
I ask, “Doesn’t clearing the bases end all the fun?”
He looks puzzled. “You like singles and doubles?”
I cheer up. “A single keeps the line-up moving.”
He likes that. “Singles and doubles. Keep the line moving.”
I add, “Imagine Maury at first, ready to steal second.”
He looks at my ancient two-wheeler. “Keep the line moving.”
Dr. Oza fictionalized Jack Brickhouse in his debut novel, Double Play on the Red Line.
Winter is long gone
But the Cubs’ bats are frozen
Like tongues on train tracks
Is there anything that connects
my hometown like a Subway Series?
Game 1: Cubs Win 10-5;
North Siders feel they’ll own
The 2026 Crosstown Classic,
The Windy City Showdown
Game 2: White Sox hit five homers;
The Chicago Showdown,
The North–South Showdown,
Tilts back to the Southside
Game 3: Sox walk-off in extra innings;
South Siders claim this year’s
Crosstown Cup,
The Red Line Series
For three days, baseball connects Chicago
More than any rickety Transit Authority
His ERA is
Under One-Point-O: Oh, oh:
Fear his bat much more
1B Albert Pujols (Dominican Republic)
2B Rod Carew (Panama)
SS Luis Aparicio (Venezuela)
3B Adrian Beltré (Dominican Republic)
LF Minnie Miñoso (Cuba)
CF Andruw Jones (Curaçao)
RF Ichiro Suzuki (Japan)
C Iván Rodríguez (Puerto Rico)
LHP Mike Cuéllar (Cuba), Fernando Valenzuela (Mexico)
RHP Ferguson Jenkins (Canada), Pedro Martínez (Dominican Republic)
RP Mariano Rivera (Panama)
TWPH* Shohei Ohtani (Japan)
HOOF! Roberto Clemente (per SCOTUS, PR is a territory “belonging to” but “not a part of” the U.S.)
MGR Bruce Bochy (France)
_______________
* Two-Way Pitching and Hitting
! Humanitarian On and Off the Field
Dr. Oza, author of Double Play on the Red Line, was born in Bombay, grew up in Canada, and has lived more than half a century in Chicagoland and California.
Take me out to grand old Wrigley,
Take me out with the crowd.
Buy me some brooms and cracker jack,
I don’t care if I never get back,
For it’s root, root, root for the Cubbies,
If they hadn’t swept four it’d be a shame.
For it’s one, two, three walkoffs,
the Reds are out,
At the old ball game.
Are five heads
Better than one?
The SF Giants must think so,
Supporting Tony Vitello
With four former managers—
None, like him, Joe Collegers.
Baseball big heads that Tony can poach?
Jayce Tingler is the Bench Coach;
Ron Washington is the Infield Coach;
Trusted advisors include Baker and Boche.
Moneyballers might use a decision tree
To address chance, cost and utility.
But Giants ballplayers will surely see
Lineups and rotations made by Tony V.
At the dawn of the U.S. space program,
Chuck Yeager derisively called the
Mercury Seven’s space heroes “spam in the can.”
But Alan Shepard, Gus Grissom and John Glenn
Proved to have The Right Stuff.
It was stuff that sustained dreamy kids like me.
In 1969, my family moved to Chicago;
On July 20, the first-place Cubs swept a doubleheader,
And old men cried when young men landed on the moon.
By 1972, the old and the young took it all for granted:
Winning seasons, good governance, lunar landings.
But the pendulum swings like Cape Canaveral’s weather.
The Cubs grew old and began losing again;
Nixon stayed corrupt, presaging another warmongering despot;
And NASA’s budget was cut, grounding Apollo’s “giant leap for mankind.”
The other day Artemis II left earth’s orbit.
The rocket, launched like a ball off of a burning bat,
Blasted off from the Kennedy Space Center Launch Pad.
The morning opened with a wall of rain;
But before liftoff, the cumulus cloud cover revealed
Sunshine that reminded me of Ernie’s smile.
Ernie Banks, that is.
Brother Ernie, whose smile defeated the rain.
Mr. Cub Ernie, of “Let’s play II” fame.
Artemis’ astronauts—in Mercury’s shadow—
Took that slingshot ride of fire to the moon.
The moonshadow reminded me of Billy.
Billy Williams, that is.
Sweet swinging Billy, the moon to Ernie’s sun.
Ironman Billy, of “Let’s play 1,117” fame.
