An I.O.U. to Big Klu, 1975

An I.O.U. to Big Klu, 1975

By Michael Gaspeny

Illustration by Mark Mosley

I felt guilty for miffing my wife so many nights
by flying from our dinner table to the guys
above first base at Greensboro Memorial Stadium,
where we assessed prospects swinging
for the fences and kept the beer man hopping.
 
So, one time, I shelled out for box seats behind the plate
and took Cheryl. The tanned man next to me shone
in a white shirt with split sleeves. His bludgeoner’s
biceps jolted me. From baseball cards
emblazoned on my brain, I recognized
the muscles of Ted Kluszewski, “Big Klu,”
might more mythic to old boys from the ‘50s
like me than gold medal champions hoisting
barbells on our Wheaties boxes.
 
Settling the flutter in my throat, I asked,
 Aren’t you Ted Kluszewski? He smiled, nodded,
said he was there to evaluate hitters for the Reds.
I introduced him to Cheryl. Her eyes whisked
Klu’s wavy gray hair and Herculean arms,
the gold pen and notebook open in his lap.
In between jottings, he lamented the loss
of the old stadiums—homes, not domes.
 
As Cheryl and I left the park, her hips brushed mine.

Michael Gaspeny’s most recent works are Flight Manual: New and Selected Poems and A Postcard from the Delta, a novel about blues, football, and racial discord. He’s the author of a novella in verse, The Tyranny of Questions, and two chapbooks. His lifelong addiction to the Detroit Tigers has brought him woe and joy, although not in equal measure. He has won the Randall Jarrell Poetry Competition. When Gaspeny was a sportswriter in Arkansas, Bob Gibson, known for his ferocious brilliance on the mound, declared, “You can ask all the questions you like, but I’m not answering any of them.” At least the reporter got a brush-off instead of a shave.

Mark Mosley is a public school 7th grade math teacher. He draws baseball cards when he is not driving his son to baseball or his daughter to gymnastics. His cards can be seen on Twitter @mosley_mark, on Instagram @idrawbaseballcards, and can be purchased at https://idrawbaseballcards.bigcartel.com/

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