the death of the killer

Picture: Puzzle piece of Harm

The Death of the Killer

There is a symbol and it generally agreed upon who it represents.

But, there was a bar fight once over if the batter is a righty or southpaw.

A southpaw is a lefty, this is a baseball poem, keep up. It's all so silly,

really, because it depends on what dug out you're in. Dug out is my favorite

baseball word (my second favorite is ducksnort (tragedy)) because it makes

baseball seem like it sprang from the earth. Zeus threw some thunder

bolts into a forest and made a grassy knoll. Groundhogs unearthed

the dugouts. I don't know how the bases got there. Tree stump remains?

Dug outs look like trenches, home plate looks like a house and left field looks

like shame. The first inning of my first varsity game freshman year, my knees chattered

in shallow left. The lead off hitter singled and it went through my legs. I turned around 

and dashed after the ball. He tried to take second, but I threw him out. That is my life.

An embarrassment, followed by some luck and a smidgen of skill. My father 

came to every game. He is sitting across from me now, watching the news. Harmon Killebrew

has died today. He was my father's favorite ball player growing up. There is a red chair atop

a wall in the Mall of America. It is 520 feet from home plate, not 439 feet. A physicist was 

brought in to find out the real distance traveled. A Killebrew home run hit that chair. Killebrew

just sounds like a baseball name. There are last names that just sound like ball players. Mine doesn't. 

But, I will always be in left field, knees chattering, picturing the diamond 10,000 years ago.