Hot Southern Nights-F

During the time before television came to our home, My dad sat there in his car on many a dark Southern night. And I was somewhere close by, enjoying a wonderful game of Major League Baseball on the radio. O, there were several teams in the majors like The Pirates, The White Socks and The Red Socks were popular teams. But in my town in Northern Mississippi, baseball was all about the Cardinals, the Dodgers, and the Yankees. There were many sights and sounds of baseball beaming from radios and television sets. I must say that I mean no disrespect to other good and decent sportscasters, but Harry Carry and Pee Wee Reese made us feel like we were there in the stands. My dad had lots of friends, but two were rivals in the game. There was his friend, the Yankee man name Mr. Baines; And then, Mr. Mon, his other friend, was a Dodger fan. But my dad’s heart was in St. Louis with Stan the Man. In the memory of my mind, I can hear those games now on the radio. Those nights were dark and hot, but the baseball captured and calmed me. Reading newspapers and enjoying a baseball game on the radio were two things my dad and I shared together. But also, later on, we obtained a television. With the snapshots tucked away in the frames of my mind, after 50-plus years, I can still see the Baseball Game of the Week. I'm rather certain that neither my dad nor his two friends ever graced the stadiums of their teams. I'm proud to say that it was through them that I developed a deep love for the game. So, in a way, when I saw two games at Wrigley Field in Chicago, they were there also; or when I enjoyed two games of the Giants at Candlestick Park in San Francisco, they sat right next to me. They say that baseball is America’s great past time experience; but for me, baseball was always about ‘now and then’, ‘today, and ‘tomorrow’ too. It was about a little country boy fantasizing and dreaming today about what could be tomorrow. Written 042010; Entry122422PS Contest, Matt Caliri, Poetry in Motion The National Pastime, Phillip Garcia also: (Screwed XV11 Contest, Rod Carmack; 10th Pl)