It was the first walk I’ve taken
through the neighborhood
so late in summer without
listening to a ballgame.
Those voices from Toronto,
Cincinnati, L.A.—the waves
of crowd noise cresting—
pass the nights safely.
Junes filled with static,
an old-timer telling
a two-inning yarn,
a team trudging
to the top of the 15th
climbs the steps as I do—
the diamond my cul-de-sac,
the radio a compass, tilting.
Sandra Marchetti is the author of Confluence, a full-length collection of poetry from Sundress Publications (2015). She is also the author of four chapbooks of poetry and lyric essays. Sandra’s baseball poetry appears widely in Poet Lore, Blackbird, Baseball Prospectus, Southwest Review, FanGraphs’ The Hardball Times, and elsewhere. Her prose on the game can be found at Barrelhouse, Fansided, and Pleiades. She is currently shopping a book of poems about the Chicago Cubs, listening to baseball on the radio, and going to games with her Dad. Sandy earned an MFA in Creative Writing—Poetry from George Mason University and now serves as the Coordinator of Tutoring Services at the College of DuPage in the Chicagoland area. This is her sixth annual appearance in Hobart’s baseball issue.
