Coaching Pitchers.

Smith, Ron

Coaching Pitchers

I. Little League

   When my only pitcher went wild
   against the league's worst team,
   I knew we had a cushion, hell, ten runs
   at least. Time for a life-lesson. Like Zeus I towered
   over him on the mound and poured the positive
   into his anguished eyes. Said I wasn't taking him out
   no matter what. And he walked the runs
   in and in and in. Before the second inning
   I should have known nothing would help him
   but another sunrise.

   I was raised to believe will
   could do anything, lift you out of any kind of slump.
   The short kid got shorter as the long day waned,
   his eleven year old brow crawling with wrinkles.
   I was Lear, now, had given my word,
   and even my smart-ass centerfielder knew
   not to come between the dragon and his wrath.
   Trapped in my sovereignty,

   I turned to stone
   as the runs added up and we lost 29-27 and
   the lesson sank in like a dull blade
   just above my top vertebra, the one known
   as the Atlas.

II. Pony League

   When my only pitcher lumbered off the mound
   at the perfect bunt and threw late to first,
   I saw the other coach's eyes light up.
   Next bunt, also perfect, also beat out,
   bases loaded.

   I moved Molasses at third
   into concussion range, and still they bunted
   straight at the mound past Molasses and later
   past my stumbly first baseman, too,
   and the runs poured in.

   This one, I said, is Fate,
   not my incompetence. How can anyone be that slow?
   I can see him even now waddling toward the puffball
   lolling in the grass, too late, oh my God, again,
   too late.

III. Junior Varsity

   The leadoff man for the team I'd never heard of
   drilled a triple to right center, as did the next guy up.
   What are the odds against two pitches and two triples
   in the top of the first? Number three lined a mere single,
   the cleanup, a double. Where do you get sixteen-year-old bats
   like these? I stared at my new black shoes and then at
   the tight face of my former shortstop in his mound debut,
   only guy on the team who could really play. What have I done
   to him. His shoulders sag already, but he wings another strike
   and-Hallelujah!-it's dribbled to second where it holograms through
      Collier's
   and rolls into right field. Throw to second's
   fifteen feet off the ground and nobody's backing up.
   Next guy homers. We had no slaughter rule back then,
   and I'd die before calling it off. I walked back and forth
   to the bench, passing their perfectly uniformed coach
   who never tried to catch my eye. His guys were classy,

   never jeered, never even smirked. They pitched, they fielded,
   they jogged in fast after each inning. They circled my star
   dispassionately, their eyes blank as Greek statues'.
   Another case of pure bad luck. True, pitchers, quarterbacks,
   field goal kickers--I never liked them. Too much relish
   on those hotdogs. Maybe Fate, too, is an old lineman,
   aching all over even in his youth, and maybe, between us,
   we were trying to teach poor Bobby Levinson
   how to suffer, how to lose.