POEM: Do I Even Like Baseball?

Do I even like baseball?

Or do I merely like the way

Baseball makes me remember

Watching baseball as a kid,

On holiday in America,

Wishing I had grown up in America

And not the UK?

Grown up to be a kid who loves

Baseball

Instead of the kid I actually was?

Is it baseball that I like

Or those memories of watching it with my uncle

In his Long Island den?

As he explained to me the rules

And I felt I was being inducted

Into something far more special

That the football back home

That my own father thought so obvious

He never bothered to explain?

Do I really love the Red Sox

Or just that summer all those years later

on Cape Cod?

Left alone in my mother’s house,

Watching them lose three games to the Yankees

(Including that epic Jeter catch)

In the days before July 4th?

Fireworks rained out and then

another loss against Atlanta.

Yet they went on to win the World Series.

Their first since 1918.

I couldn’t help but admire such underdogs.

They won it again in 2013

The same week as my mother’s funeral.

A different house on Cape Cod and this time no fireworks.

Except the ones at Fenway Park.

We watched together on TV

And took small solace from our grief.

It felt nice to smile about something.

After such a shitty year.

Maybe memories are all we mean

When we say we like a thing?

Familiarity evoking feeling

That feels like something we like?

I think I do like baseball.

Maybe even love it.

Although,

As I wrote this poem,

The Sox scored 6 against Chicago,

Coming from behind to win the game,

And I was staring at this screen.

I read a lot too while watching baseball.

So many breaks and pauses.

But this is the first time I have written

In between - and during - the innings.

A sport with time for creation?

A reflection recreation?

A game designed for long conversations and played at the pace of life.

Another reason, perhaps, to love it.

If, indeed, I really do?