Rain Delay
There’s a sign I pass on my drive to the stadium every day.
It says “City of Cochrane: 774 km”
I wonder if anyone has ever seen that and thought,
“Oh good, we’re almost there.”
In the hour before the game, I sit in the bleachers to absorb
the ballpark. The seats creak when I sit down,
and the steel beams that support the awning
are completely rusted over. The scoreboard in left field
does the bare minimum, and the scattered advertisements
are for companies that have gone under. The smell of cut grass
and fresh popcorn makes it feel like a Ballpark.
There’s an odd kind of remembering,
A nostalgia that’s not our own.
Come gametime, give or take a thousand loyal fans
file into the seats. They share their full support for 3 hours.
1 hour on days we’re losing. Taking the field here
is a type of euphoria I’ve never experienced before.
I have simultaneously convinced myself that someday,
I’ll pitch in front of 40,000 fans, but never truly believed
I’d pitch in front of 1000. After the game, I sign autographs
for the 50 young children who managed to stay awake,
and a few even ask to take a picture with me. As they leave,
the mom says, “That’s so awesome, dude!” and the kid
starts skipping, admiring the ball I just signed.
Seeing them, I can’t help but think,
“Oh good, I’m almost there.”
***
RPMs
I’m sitting here, soaking in the data of my 17th pitch in the 2nd
inning today. This new camera called Rapsodo tells me
everything I could ever want to know about each pitch.
I learn that when I tuck my ring and pinky fingers
under the seam, my fastball spins at 2400 rpms
instead of 2250 and clocks in at 89.2 mph instead of 86.8 mph.
Trying to explain all of this to my dad over the phone, I tell him,
“what once was an ‘art’ is now an equation. When we ‘paint the corners,’
we can now see it in 3D animation just seconds after the ball hits
the catcher’s glove.” He’s interested and supportive enough but his resentment
for the sport shines through. He hasn’t seen one of my games
for about 5 years now, either in person or virtually.
I asked him once, a long time ago, why he never
made more of an effort and he said, “I just hate it.
It took my boy, my best friend, from me. So I hate it.”
After a sigh, he asks “what is all this for?”
I’m performing simply to recreate.
Pitchers will send their numbers to coaches and scouts
in search of a future. I had a coach once say to me,
“Look at that changeup! Really just falls off the table.”
I thought, “you’ve never even seen me throw it.”
An artist > athlete > person > rows of numbers and clunky animations.
A lot of life is just learning to handle reduction. After the divorce,
my dad rented a 5×10 storage unit to move his belongings into.
I helped him do so one afternoon, and when we were done,
we took a step back and gazed into the nearly filled space.
Lego and model planes took up most of the closet,
but there were boxes of pictures and other
meaningful papers scattered throughout. I said,
“look at this… this is your entire life right here.”
There was a pause followed by a melodramatic “thank you”
then we laughed. I laughed. There was laughter. “And you,”
he said. “You better make it or else this really will be it.”
Then we laughed. He laughed. There was laughter.
Now and then, when I’m home for the holidays,
I’ll meet one of his friends or clients and they’ll say,
“so you’re the famous Jake we always hear about!”
Then they’ll lean in close and say, “He’s very proud of you,
you know.” which seems to mean more than when he says it.
“He’s constantly telling us about you and your baseball.”
I always wonder what he says. Maybe he tells them
that my fastball is spinning 100 rpms faster this week.
I imagine him saying, “You should see his changeup.”
***
Spiraling
Every 2 out error leads to a homerun. Okay not literally but it feels that way when you’re pitching. When the batter hits the ball on the ground, directly at a defender, you check out mentally. The inning’s over. But the shortstop bobbles it before throwing it to first base, and the runner’s huffs and puffs turn from frustrated to hopeful. His foot stomps the bag a split second before the ball hits the first baseman’s mitt and the umpire yells, “SAFE”. You’re devastated. The opposing dugout is losing their minds and you can feel the dark clouds rolling in overhead. After the next batter hits the ball 50 feet over the fence, your teammate comes up to you and says, “that’s just baseball.”
There’s something in there about momentum, and about giving your opponent extra opportunities. Coaches will say “you can’t let your foot off of their throats,” but really, it’s the way we spiral. They should know the homerun is inevitable.
The way you should’ve known, when your parents filed for bankruptcy that your dad would get cancer. The way you should’ve known when he finally recovered, that it would come back. The way you should’ve known when he had his heart attack that they would get divorced. It’s the way we spiral. Sometimes my father and I will talk about the dark years, when I would get called into the counselor’s office because my poems were “concerning.” Back when I had to tell the counselor that I was the last person in the family she should be concerned about.
I tell him now about how it used to hurt, because it didn’t seem right to tell him back then. He says, “I’m so sorry… for everything that’s happened to us.” And I tell him what’s obvious, “that’s just baseball.”
***
Jacob Gajic is a former college and current semi-professional pitcher studying for his MFA in creative writing at Minnesota State University, Mankato.
One Response
I was raised in upstate NY in the 1940s and early 50s. Six people in a small old house, no TV until I was a teen. Quiet, simple , dull – EXCEPT for the Brooklyn Dodgers. My parents LOVED the team, though they’d never been to Brooklyn – or anywhere else. My mother listened to every game on our static-plagued radio, turned to maxiumum volume while she did houseowork. They were, somehow, PERSONALLY proud when THEIR team signed the great Jackie Robinson, although they themselves were white and knew no one Black. I was told ALL ABOUT him. Baseball was my childhood “theatre” and “romance.” To paraphrase Jacob Gajic’s ‘Rain Delay,’ it is “a nostalgia that’s not my own,” but still resonates in me. I love these poems.