The First Lady of Baseball

The First Lady of Baseball

By Charles Rammelkamp

During her time in the White House,
Mother rooted for the Washington Senators,
became known as “the First Lady of Baseball.”
“You may not give a hoot for the sport,”
she told her friends, “but to me,
it is my very life.”
 
The American League sent her a yearly pass
sealed in a gold-trimmed purse.
 
Bucky Harris, the Senators’ manager called her
“the most rabid baseball fan I ever knew
in the White House.” The Coolidges attended
Harris’ wedding in October, 1926.
 
Mother attended as many games as she could,
faithfully filling out her scorecard,
and when they were on The Mayflower,
the presidential yacht, sailing down the Potomac,
she tuned in the Senators’ games on station WRC.
 
When the Senators clinched the pennant in 1924,
Mother and Father attended the first game,
the World Series starting in Griffith Stadium,
Walter Johnson, 36, on the mound.
I was just starting at Amherst, my brother,
Calvin Jr., only three months dead.
 
The score tied 2-2 after nine innings,
Father got up to leave. Mother, wearing her
“good luck” necklace, seven ivory elephants,
 yanked him back into his seat. She snapped,
“Where do you think you’re going?”
Father sat back down to watch
the Giants win 4-3 in twelve.
 
The Senators won the series in seven,
another nail-biting twelve-inning game,
Johnson getting the final win in relief,
though he’d lost the two games he started.
Exultant fans carried him to the President,
who said in his characteristic understated way,
“Nice work. I’m glad you won.”
But mother? She jumped for joy!

Charles Rammelkamp is Prose Editor for BrickHouse Books in Baltimore. Two full-length collections were published in 2020, Catastroika, from Apprentice House, and Ugler Lee from Kelsay Books. A poetry chapbook, Mortal Coil, was published by Clare Songbirds Publishing.

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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