Poem: Games of Toss

Today would be my dad's 66th birthday. He died in 1992, but he carries on in my mind and in how I live my life. We were extremely close; best friends. We shared Rutgers' season tickets in basketball, coached youth sports together, spoke several times a day by phone, were openly affectionate, and just flat out enjoyed each other's company. The scene from "Field of Dreams," where Kevin Costner and his father have a catch, touches me, not because my dad and I ever needed a reconciliation, but because of what the game of catch meant to my father and I on a regular basis. For all its commonality, it was uniquely our own.


Games of Toss

A baseball glove sits
No more catches
And I miss you
Miss the games of toss.

No one throws me curves
Puts a righties’ mitt on backwards
And I miss that
Miss the games of toss.

I don’t throw now
Stopped finding release in the game
And I miss you
Miss the games of toss.

Wishing for one more time
Just back and forth like it was
And I miss that
Miss the games of toss
Miss them with you
Miss you.

Copyright SGW 1997

Footnote: My father had major league offers in his youth and, as a kid and as an adult, I heard countless stories that he was the best ballplayer in Brooklyn at the time. He had a curveball that would drop off the table, a knuckler that seemed to stop in mid-air and he could throw with both hands (hence the righties' mitt on the wrong hand). He switch-hit, too. I used to marvel at his swing because he reminded me in style of Willie Mays. Yes, he was that good.

Added to One Single Impression for Childhood Memories.