The Pecan Park Eagle

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.