A Triple Triptych

A Triple Triptych

By Robert Cooperman

Jimmy Piersall, Formerly of the Cleveland Indians, Reincarnated

In his first, his baseball life, 
he was nuttier than a jar of almonds, especially when he batted against 
the Yankees’ reliever, Ryne Duren, 
whose fastball terrorized even Yogi Berra, 
or so he muttered when that near-blind soak 
teetered to the mound: Duren’s first warm-up 

sailed into the stands, his second bounced
ten feet in front of the plate, spraying divots 
big as buzzards into the air: most batters
crapped themselves by then, but not Piersall, 
even after Duren uncorked one 
that almost shaved Jimmy’s skull.

With the next pitch, Piersall flung his bat, 
Duren outweighing him by fifty pounds.  
But Jimmy, pugnacious as a rat-terrier, 
followed the hurled slab of ash to the mound, 
his fists wind-milling, spit flying, saner players 
pulling the two apart while Jimmy’s punches flailed.

But let’s talk about Piersall’s next life;
the one in which I imagine he became  
a newspaper editor, foaming 
when reporters failed to meet deadlines; 
only, he always counted as high as it took,
to maintain his equilibrium, 
never had to resort to liquid tranquility: 
inner peace something it had taken him
two lifetimes to finally learn.

Marv Throneberry, First Baseman Extraordinaire for the New York Mets, Comes Back

“Marvelous” Marv Throneberry, 
one nickname, also “Doctor Stone Hands,” 
for his fumble-fielding though according 
to a baseball encyclopedia he was—
with the exception of one truly spastic year—
an average fielder for a first baseman.

But he did know that if you can’t be great,
you’d better be amusing, so he’d quip
about screaming liners, “Whew, almost 
didn’t get out of the way of that one,”
or the time he hit a triple, but forgot
to touch second and so was thrown out,
only he’d forgot to touch first as well. 

In his next life, I see him as an artisan
maybe a diamond cutter making precise 
slices in raw stones: a rock-steady hand 
and predator-patience essential.

Or a chess grandmaster, who can think 
ten, fifteen, twenty moves ahead, 
can see the board and all the possibilities 
the placement of a pawn could result in,
who can calculate where his opponent
might place a rook or bishop, and how 
that maneuver would affect the entire game:

something he could never see
on the diamond, lucky to get his glove
and bat on the ball, and touch all the bases
in the right order, but so much more fun
than the tension, the stress, the worry 
of planning, plotting what to do next.

The Relief Pitcher Ryne Duren, in His Second Life

When Duren lumbered to the mound
in the middle or late innings,
it was only half an act by that great
Yankee savant, Yogi Berra, to mutter,

“Oh crap, not that blind, drunk bastard,”
to back the batter a foot off the plate, 
and make him concentrate not on hitting
but on being “Past tense,” as Berra called it, 
if you were beaned by Duren’s high heat 
he could control as well as a kite in a hurricane.

It didn’t help that Duren wore glasses 
thick as ashtray bottoms, the lenses misting
so badly he’d clean them with his filthy 
handkerchief, while the batter’s knees knocked 
more ferociously than bamboo in a hurricane.  
Plus, it was rumored he could drink 
even Mickey Mantle under home plate.

In his next life, the one after he’d descended 
into the ground to sober up in the well of souls,
he returned as a mortician, impeccably dressed, 
a look of sympathy on his staid face, knowing 
how to act when the bereaved wept in his office.

He never drank, his eyes a perfect 20/20, 
but he wore fake glasses with the heavy black rims
of compassion for the grief of his clients.

Robert Cooperman’s latest collection is The Ghosts and Bones of Troy (Kelsay Books).  Also forthcoming from Kelsay Books is Reefer Madness.  Forthcoming from Finishing Line Press is the chapbook, All Our Fare-Thee-Wells.