Spring Training

Spring Training

By Robert Cooperman

Before they slunk off for the filthy lucre
of L.A., the Brooklyn Dodgers played
spring training games at Vero Beach, Florida.
 
That one February when I had to accompany
my mother to Miami, my grandfather needing
an emergency appendectomy, I wondered
 
how far our hotel was from the fabled city
of Robinson, Campanella, Pee Wee, and the Duke,
and if, at ten-years-old, I could hitch there.
 
I never did get to Vero Beach, but years later,
Grandpa took my brother and me
to the first ever Mets game, their shortstop,
 
Charley Neal, letting a ground ball
I could’ve fielded bounce right between his legs,
to the groans of everyone in the stands,
 
sensing we were witnessing history,
the first loss of 120 for the season:
everyone, that is, except Grandpa,
 
too caught up in his first beer
of the afternoon, still celebrating
that successful operation.

Getting Mickey Mantle’s Autograph: Spring Training

“Mick, Mick!” Kevin pleaded,
the Yankees spring training camp
in the town where he lived
with his mother and step-father,
who, after the game, guided Kevin
to the team bus, to score
his sports idol’s autograph.
 
“Mick, Mick!” Kevin held up
Mantle’s baseball card and a pen,
Mantle, maybe a little hungover,
this afternoon, Kevin desperate
for that signature sacred
as a bat made from the True Cross.
 
Finally, Mantle scowled,
“Get the hell out of my way!”
and emulating Cagney in White Heat,
shoved, not a grapefruit half
into Kev’s shocked face, but Mantle’s
hard palm, his stepfather keeping Kevin
from falling, then shouting,
 
“What would it have cost you?” 
 
Years and beers later, Kevin confided,
 
“That turned me into a Yankee hater.”
An old Brooklyn Dodgers fan, I shot back,
 
“Hell, what took you so long”?

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.