Fugly Ducklings

Most ignoble baseball clod, I-

little league bat authored one foul.

Charged my lone fielding chance

(bases loaded single), and fell over.

Terror pinned me and ball aground

as 4 Rotary guys got the 'home plate special'

(but saved me an order of crow).

3 base error on a CLEANLY FIELDED BALL!.

Never played again.

Nine years pass,

Salem Pirate pitcher Jerry Thomas

critiques my "delivery";

the blazer whipcracks almost 60 mph

knee high over an imaginary inside corner

(drills the Waffle House sign egg in left).

Thomas says I MADE A GOOD PITCH!

Not a lightly taken compliment -

Jerry's Double A career e.r.a. is 0.00.

.877 fielding third sacker Milt Jefferson

reflexes a '73 Bill Nahorodny

Carolina League rocket 11 feet high,

Thomas throws one scoreless inning

as a '77 Shreveport Captain,

my cerebral palsied muscles

co-ordinate a memorybank pitch the same year,

and therein lies baseball's most overlooked beauty.

Sometimes Jimmy Olson gets to be Superman.

Dan Taylor