1950
The Pecan Park Eagle
By Bill McCurdy (1993)
Ode To An Old Baseball Cover I Found While
Playing Catch with My 8-Year Old Son Neal
In An Abandoned School Yard.
Tattered friend, I found you again,
Laying flat in a field of yesterday’s hope.
Your resting place? An abandoned schoolyard.
When parents move away, the children go too.
How long have you been here,
Strangling in the entanglement of your grassy grave,
Bleaching your brown-ness in the summer sun,
Freezing your frailness in the ice of winter?
How long, old friend, how long?
Your magical essence exploded from you long ago.
God only knows when.
Perhaps, it was the result of one last grand slam.
One last grand slam, a solitary cherishment,
Now remembered only by the doer of that distant past deed.
Only the executioner long remembers the little triumphs.
The rest of the world never knows, or else, soon forgets.
I recovered you today from your ancient tomb,
From your place near the crunching sound of my footsteps.
I pulled you from your enmeshment in the dying July grass,
And I wanted to take you home with me.
Oh, would that the warm winds of spring might call us,
One more time, awakening our souls in green renewal
To that visceral awareness of hope and possibility.
To soar once more in spirit, like the Pecan Park Eagle,
High above the billowing clouds of a summer morning,
In flight destiny – to all that is bright and beautiful.
There is a special consolation in this melancholy reunion.
Because you once held a larger world within you,
I found a larger world in me.
Come home with me, my friend,
Come home.
isn’t SABR, but oughta be
All of us from the Larry Dierker and Rogers Hornsby Chapters hope you enjoyed SABR 44 in Houston – and many of us look forward to seeing you next summer in Chicago for SABR 45.
Godspeed to each of you for a safe and happy trip home.
Tags: A SABR 44 Pictorial
The Pecan Park Eagle 
August 5, 2014 at 11:31 am |
Thank you for your efforts.
August 5, 2014 at 1:14 pm |
Bill, you did GOOD! Thanks for your great work.
August 5, 2014 at 1:24 pm |
Bill: Your ode reminded me of a poem by the great Irish poet, William Butler Yeats, entitled “Memory.”
One had a lovely face,
And two or three had charm,
But charm and face are in vain
Because the mountain grass
Cannot but keep the form
Where the mountain hare has lain.
I also enjoyed the collage of pictures from Houston’s baseball past. Good work as usual.
August 5, 2014 at 4:55 pm |
Awesome! Thanks, Bill. It was truly a convention for the ages. Chicago’s going to have to bust their tails to match it!
August 5, 2014 at 7:07 pm |
Many, many thanks, Bill. Beautiful poem and GREAT pictures.
August 6, 2014 at 2:19 am |
Very good piece, Bill. Your photos will be cherished by all those SABR members who find them here.
August 7, 2014 at 3:10 am |
Thanks for the SABR coverage. We enjoyed and appreciated all of your special input!