#baseballstories

[amlitlover]

Edna Ferber’s Bush League Hero

Edna Ferber: "When is a ball player not a ball player? Above the storm of facetious replies I shout the answer: When he's a shoe clerk." https://americanliterature.com/author/edna-ferber/short-story/a-bush-league-hero

[amosartstudio]

#TBT March 10, 1992, when I was the art director for Firsts magazine (book collecting). We did a photo shoot of books of baseball stories at #DodgerStadium. The photographer Bruce Ecker and I had the stadium to ourselves. We were like kids. So much fun. * * * * * #BruceEcker #bookcollecting #baseballstories #baseball (at Dodger Stadium) https://www.instagram.com/p/Bwq4_qhACy8/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=125zkit72q20j

[wanderingcopycat]

Concrete Umbrella

After nine innings, the game ended and the dome slowly poured out. Men in dark blue jump-suits with wide yellow brooms began running as fast as they could down the aisles, sweeping up the bags boxes cups shells and souvenirs ahead of them. In the nose-bleeds, the guy who had to carry around the sodas finally sat down and had one for himself. Mom came down the stairs holding tight to the railing, watching her feet as they moved.

“You boys ready,” she said looking like she just woke up.

“Did you see his catch?” my dad asked.

I held open my glove to show her the ball.

“You caught a homerun ball?” she asked, smiling with a squinted eye and leaning forward.

“It was a foul ball.”

She stood straight up and shrugged.

“Oh. Just the same. Just tell everyone it was a homerun ball. That sounds much better. That sounds a lot better.”

She swished her hand sideways and leaned forward. 

"You can bring it to school in the fall. Bring it in for show-and-tell. You tell everyone there was a homerun and you show them the ball. We should sit it up on a shelf somewhere.”

“But it was a foul ball.”

And I didn’t want to bring it to school. Everybody would grab at it and they would ruin it. I didn’t want to tell them it was a homerun ball, that would ruin it too. I wanted to bury my ball under piles of socks crammed into the back corner of my dresser drawer where no one could get to it and it would stay just as it was when I first got it for as long as it was mine. My dad snapped a rubberband around our bag of peanuts and I squeezed my foul ball into my back pocket. I left my souvenir cup sweating in the holder when my dad led me by the neck back up the striped yellow stairs, on our way home. Mom trailed behind, holding tight to the railing, watching her feet as they moved.