Searching for a Shadow

Purgatory:

minors in one province,

majors immediately adjacent,

while you shiver between barbed wire

in a no man's land slit trench.

Bill Lindsay toiled 15 years

at the game he loved;

outside of obscure outposts

nobody much gave a damn.

After being hopelessly hooked

on The Game of the Week,

dad spoke glowingly of a brother in law

who played ball with Portland;

even made the MAJORS!

One day a pack of cards

disclosed Frank Linzy.

I rushed to dad overjoyed;

I'd found the family's ballplayer!

(at ten, time reference and homonyms

were abstract theory)

Was glum when told

my guy wasn't even close.

From that day I vowed

to pursue the true Lindsay lexicon

and hardly found anything.

Bill was an infielder

born in the year of Ty Cobb.

He played in the PCL

for Vernon and Portland from '10 thru '12,

making the Show with Cleveland

in '11 as a spearcarrier makes the Met.

In 27 games at second, short and third

Bill hit .242 with 2 stolen bases.

In 1914 with Macon,

leading Southern League regulars

in fielding at third base, he hit .258

(like Bambi Belanger,

Unc barely hit his hatsize).

Bill died in Greensboro in 1963,

after appearing on 5 baseball cards.

Surfing the internet one night

I found a grandson

who typed rapturous prose of fishing

and trips to the Indian ballpark

with grandpa Bill.

There the story ends

except for a final detail;

last November

the world's happiest camper

was a 45 year old manchild

who on EBAY snagged a 1911 OBAK

Bill Lindsay.