Hello again, sorry for the extended absence.  I could have sworn I logged on and posted something but apparently not and to be quite honest the details of the last two weeks have been absolutely brutal.  I have thrown a few times, some good, some bad with basically no correlation to how I actually threw the ball.  Very frustrating, but basically the story of my season to this point.  The good news is that I am healthy and both my arm and body are feeling great so I just have to go out on the mound and make it happen.  As a team we have been absolutely awful.  After a 5-2 road trip to open the season we have since gone 3-14 to put our record for the season at 8-16, the exact same record as the Durham Bulls when they got the lollygaggers speech in Bull Durham.  It is now reaching the point of total embarrassment the way I and my teammates are getting beaten basically every night, but hard as I try to be mad I can’t do it.  It is extremely frustrating and it really sucks, but guys are still playing hard and everybody else is as upset about how we are playing as I am so there isn’t anything to be done but keep on working and hope things turn around at some point.  We have two more games against Trenton at home before we head back out on the road and taking two to split the series would be a great start back down the road this team was on all of last season.

 

Away from the field I have been doing my usual high volume of reading, as well as exploring the local park system.  While the Cuyahoga is probably most famous (or more likely, infamous) for it’s past penchant for catching on fire due to the extremely high pollution levels, Summit County has made it the centerpiece of a rather sprawling network of parks around Akron.  I’ve take a few cursory strolls through some of the parks before, but I utilized the recent off day to make a bit more complete exploration in a couple of them and also took in one that has recently reopened after some rather extensive construction.  Getting away from all of my teammates, the field, and everything baseball related to get out in the woods for a while is very relaxing and helps me to refocus when it is time to get back to business at the field.  Anyway, I’ll leave you with the usual poem and a promise to get back on sometime in the next week with another update.

 

A Winter Without Snow

by J.D. McClatchy

 

Even the sky here in Connecticut has it,

That wry look of accomplished conspiracy,

The look of those who’ve gotten away

 

With a petty but regular white collar crime.

When I pick up my shirts at the laundry,

A black woman, putting down her Daily News,

 

Wonders why and how much longer our luck

Will hold.  “Months now and no kiss of the witch.”

The whole state overcast with such particulars.

 

For Emerson, a century ago and farther north,

Where the country has an ode’s jagged edges,

It was “frolic architecture.”  Frozen blue-

 

Print of extravagance, shapes of a shared life

Left knee-deep in transcendental drifts:

The isolate forms of snow are its hardest fact.

 

Down here, the plain tercets of provision do,

Their picket snow-fence peeling, gritty,

Holding nothing back, nothing in, nothing at all.

 

Down here, we’ve come to prefer the raw material

Of everyday and this year have kept an eye

On it, shriveling but still recognizable–

 

A sight that disappoints even as it adds

A clearing second guess to winter.  It’s

As if, in the third year of a “relocation”

 

To a promising notch way out on the Sunbelt,

You’ve grown used to the prefab housing,

The quick turnover in neighbors, the constant

 

Smell of factory smoke–like Plato’s cave,

You sometimes think–and the stumpy trees

That summer slighted and winter just ignores,

 

And all the snow that never falls is now

Back home and mixed up with other piercing

Memories of childhood days you were kept in

 

With a Negro schoolmate, of later storms

Through which you drove and drove for hours

Without ever seeing where you were going.

 

Or as if you’ve cheated on a cold sickly wife.

Not in some overheated turnpike motel room

With an old flame, herself the mother of two,

 

Who looks steamy in summer-weight slacks

And a parrot-green pullover.  Not her.

Not anyone.  But every day after lunch

 

You go off by yourself, deep in a brown study,

Not doing much of anything for an hour or two,

Just staring out the window, or at a patch

 

On the wall where a picture had hung for ages,

A woman with planets in her hair, the gravity

Of perfection in her features–oh! her hair

 

The lengthening shadow of the galaxy’s sweep.

As a young man you used to stand outside

On warm nights and watch her through the trees.

 

You remember how she disappeared in winter,

Obscured by snow that fell blindly on the heart,

On the house, on a world of possibilities.

Hello again and thanks for tuning in.  Since last report my teammates and I have gone 3-4, sandwiching a three game losing streak between two road wins and our first home victory of the season.  At present we stand at 6-5, which is perfectly respectable but obviously we’d rather not do things like lose three straight home games or lose leads late on the road so there is still some work to be done.  From a personal perspective it has been both a very good week and a so-frustrating-I-want-to-pull-out-the-hair-I-don’t-have kind of week.  I feel like I have thrown the ball very well every time out so far this year but unfortunately I had one of those outings last week where guys just keep hitting groundballs through the infield or to somebody with no play to be made, but that is how it shakes out sometimes.  Unfortunately the life of a bullpen pitcher is such that when you have a blow-up outing like that it takes seemingly forever to dig your way out of it because you throw so many fewer innings than a starter.  The good news is that I have been throwing a lot, as I’ve already appeared in six games, so if that trend continues I should be right back on track in no time.  Away from the field there is not much to report from the past week.  We’ve had three or four day games which makes it hard to get out and do anything and I haven’t really had the drive to do much anyhow.  Hopefully I’ll have something a little more scintillating for you next time, but until then I’ll leave you with a poem and wish you happy trails.

 

Inheritance

by Daniel Johnson

 

We drank hard water.

Spoke in plain language.

 

Said what we didn’t

 

with a joke or a look.

One went missing–

 

let silence drill its hole.

A second fell ill.

 

We cloaked our mirrors.

Slashed a red X

 

on the door to our house.

Pass over us, I asked

 

the raven sky,

or burn in me

 

a second mouth.