Baseball in Lea and Washington Senators

By Peter Mladinic

Baseball in Lea

Some have not heard of a bunt.
The slide is something on a guitar,
the double play a cloud of mystery.

You won’t find “I heart Ruth”
in blue ink on a notebook’s face.

Diamond takes a backseat to speedway.
Gridiron and goalposts bring out
the football in us.

Washington Senators

Whose autograph would you rather have, Albert Einstein 
or Taylor Swift? 
Pedro Ramos, a pitcher, 
ran the fastest of any in the Majors.

His cursive scrolls across blue-lined paper; 
his thin, curvy lips, good eyes, light brown hair, 
a contrast to swarthy Camilo Pascual, the better pitcher.  
Both are Washington Senators, the American League cellar.

Pedro about to board a bus outside Yankee Stadium, 
the sky overcast, I hand him pen and paper,
see his signature. He and Camilo raised in Batista’s Cuba,
Pascual is the Senators’ ace. My friend Ray 

Birmingham, a renowned coach, could tell you their best pitches.
The name’s letters glide above a blue line, Ramos glides 
across outfield grass, timed, faster than all other pitchers.
I lost the autograph, 

the paper in folds, that lay on a walnut end table.
Who won that day?  Ray could tell me about the ‘57 Senators’
starters. Pascual already on the bus,
my life and Ramos’s collide.

Peter Mladinic’s fifth book of poems, Voices from the Past, came out in November 2023 from Better Than Starbucks Publications.

An animal rights advocate, he lives in Hobbs, New Mexico, United States