Obituary for a DH-less National League

Obituary for a DH-less National League

died February 10, 2022

By Robert Fillman

Last year, catchers were calling
for pitchouts, managers still 
 
holding up four fingers when
the eight-hole hitter stepped
 
into the box. Now only days
before Valentine’s, the world’s
 
yearly celebration of love,
the National League has lost all
 
the romance, its forty-nine-year affair
with the higher moral ground.
 
As I listen to the commissioner
deliver the news on TV, I can
 
almost hear the crack of a sacrifice
bunt. I think of some white-haired
 
sage scratching out names
on a lineup card before he orders
 
a double-switch in the bottom
of the tenth, see a starting pitcher
 
slipping into his jacket
on a cool October night
 
as he readies to run the bases,
and wish the season could
 
spin backwards like a well-timed
slow-roller that curves toward
 
the foul line, losing speed
as it drifts and staying fair
 
just long enough before creeping
to a stop and everyone is safe.

Robert Fillman is the author of House Bird (Terrapin, 2022) and November Weather Spell (Main Street Rag, 2019). Individual poems have appeared in The Hollins Critic, Poetry East, Salamander, Spoon River Poetry Review, Tar River Poetry, Verse Daily, and elsewhere. In 2023, he won the inaugural E. Ethelbert Miller Prize in Poetry at The Twin Bill and was selected for an Editor’s Choice at Sheila-Na-Gig Online. Fillman teaches at Kutztown University in eastern Pennsylvania.

Jason David Córdova lives in Puerto Rico as an illustrator and painter. Some of his art can be seen on Instagram at @jasoni72. You can visit his shop on Red Bubble.

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