Casey Stops by the Ball Park on a Snowy Evening

 

“One of the hardest things in life to accept is a called third strike.” 

-- Robert Frost (1874-1963)

 

Whose field this was I used to know

But that was many years ago--

No one will see me stopping here

To practice batting in the snow.

 

The Mudville fans would think it queer

To swing a bat without a sphere;

Have they forgotten what an ache

Has trailed that game of yesteryear?

 

Since '88 I've lain awake

At night to ponder my mistake--

To wait on one I could drive deep?

Perhaps a bender I could rake...

 

The snow falls where the wind will sweep,

Regrets are wasted while we weep;

So while I swing, the town's asleep,

And still I swing though all must sleep.

 

With apologies to Robert Frost and thanks to George J. Heer ( @GJHeer2 ) , who inspired and required it!

Children playing baseball in the snow, 1956 

 

“When I was young," said Robert Frost, "I was so interested in baseball that my family was afraid I’d waste my life and be a pitcher. Later they were afraid I’d waste my life and be a poet. They were right.” 

He also wrote: “Poets are like baseball pitchers. Both have their moments. The intervals are the tough things.”

  Robert Frost playing baseball at the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference, Vermont, 1940's

@RobertFrostbyte @HylaBrookPoets @breadloafwriter @thorn_john @amjuster @GJHeer2

Robert Frost is one of several American poets ( Caseyatthe.blog has imagined ) who could also have written "Casey at the Bat."  See "Emily Dickinson in the Elysian Fields" and "Song of Our Game: The Ballad of Casey as Imagined by Walt Whitman."