Tarp is Off the Field

After nearly two years of inactivity (sitting on third, if you don’t mind a bad joke), I’m back with this blog.  I’ve changed the platform it is on as well as the look, and I look forward to the fresh start that a new season brings.  I’m also going to give the short daily poems for each game another try, I just don’t know what form they will take.  It may be haiku’s again or maybe the epic poem or I might try something new with 140 character Twitter poems.  Maybe I’ll mix it up.  But, I have a few weeks to sort that out.

This year, I will also be searching high and low on the internet and link to other fans stories or poems.  They may not all be about the Mets, but they will be about baseball.

I feel that I need to begin (start anew) with where my love of baseball was cemented…A single to left field off the bat of Gary Carter in Game Six of the 1986 World Series.  Gary Carter was always my favorite player growing up and I wrote this tribute just after he passed away, on another blog.

When I first heard of his passing, the first thing that came to mind is a poem titled “Game Called” by Henry Grantland Rice.  Originally written in 1910, he re-wrote it in 1948 as a tribute to Babe Ruth when he passed away.  I felt it is appropriate for Gary Carter.

Both beautifully written versions can be found here and the 1910 version is below.

Game Called.
Across the field of play
the dusk has come, the hour is late.
The fight is done and lost or won,
the player files out through the gate.
The tumult dies, the cheer is hushed,
the stands are bare, the park is still.
But through the night there shines the light,
home beyond the silent hill.

Game Called.
Where in the golden light
the bugle rolled the reveille.
The shadows creep where night falls deep,
and taps has called the end of play.
The game is done, the score is in,
the final cheer and jeer have passed.
But in the night, beyond the fight,
the player finds his rest at last.

Game Called.
Upon the field of life
the darkness gathers far and wide,
the dream is done, the score is spun
that stands forever in the guide.
Nor victory, nor yet defeat
is chalked against the players name.
But down the roll, the final scroll,
shows only how he played the game.