The Pecan Park Eagle

Tal and Jonnie Smith
The Top of Tal’s Hill
Minute Maid Park
Houston
September 2016

Farewell to Tal’s Hill

By Bill McCurdy

Farewell to Tal’s Hill,

That feature sublime.

It made fielders watch,

For the start of their climb.

No glove man could take,

Tal’s Hill all for granted,

And those who first did,

Quickly learned to recant it.

Built as a statement in old Enron Field,

It came with a flagpole for added appeal.

With the deep center distance at 436,

A rising hill 30 played the final run tricks.

The great ones ran up it,

Some wobbled and fell,

But some learned to play it,

Like a challenge from hell.

Remember when Lance, Mr. Berkman, went back?

The Hill made him stagger, his balance to crack.

And while he lay rolling, like a tumbling jack,

The ball came down to him, like a dove to a sack.

Tal’s Hill was much more, than a new field quirk feature,

It stood on its own, as a symbolic creature,

Of all the tough hills, that Houston has straightened,

From Hofheinz to Ford, McMullen to Drayton.

And named for the man, who was there through it all,

Tal Smith is the reason – Houston Baseball walks tall.

Thank you, Tal Smith, for your fifty-year run,

They may take down Tal’s Hill – but you will still be the one.

God Bless America!

God Bless Houston!

God Bless Baseball!

God Bless Tal’s Hill

God Bless Tal and Jonnie Smith!

____________________

 Bill McCurdy

Publisher, Editor, Writer

The Pecan Park Eagle