My Mother The Shortstop
My Mother The Shortstop
By Tom Lagasse
Range Factor is determined by dividing the sum of a fielder’s putouts and assists by his total number of defensive games played.
How I can only hope she was proud to sit in the bleachers
shivering on that unseasonably cold overcast morning,
Mother’s Day 1972, when the pomp and circumstance
for pre-teen boys to start a Little League season
took precedence over honoring the women
who birthed them.
As one of the youngest on the team, I imagined playing
an inning or getting at least an at bat1, but
I never got off the bench – not that day and not that season.
When it was over, both of us damp and cold, she drew
me near and wished that the field had lights
so I might have a chance if we played two.
Season after season, she accumulated assists like Ozzie Smith,
and her range was greater than most: A quiet cheerleader
unflagging in lean times not just to me, but to my sister and father
as well. She shuttled me to practice though I was frequently confused
by time and place and her sister to the hospital for chemo
treatments. She offered a soft landing to her and for my friend-
teammate when he struggled with an abusive sibling.
Reliable as Cal Ripken, she played through the pain of loss
for the good of the team but was more a journeyman
like Bill Almon or Tim Foli2, the unsung anchors
worthy of any club, undervalued in their worth
until they were gone.
1 This was before LL changed rules about minimum innings and at bats.
2 Almon and Foli are the Top Two in Career Range Factor
“My Mother The Shortstop” won the 2025 E. Ethelbert Miller Poetry Prize.
Tom Lagasse is a former baseball player at St. Bonaventure University, and whose poetry has recently appeared in Baseball Bard, Orenaug Mountain Poetry Journal, The Silver Birch Poetry Series, and several anthologies. He has been recognized by the National Baseball Poetry Festival and was an Artist in Residence at the Edwin Way Teale House at Trail Wood. He is the Poet Laureate of Bristol, CT.
Sam Williams is a cartoonist, comics publisher, and baseball enthusiast based in Bournemouth, UK.
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