Written for TLC Class of 2012.
We didn’t play catch…..or swim in the creek;
We left you alone, while you worked through the week.
Carrying us all, so far from yourself;
Storing a lifetime, hidden up on the shelf.
Can a Motel sing songs, and cheer quite out loud;
When a boy strikes a baseball, and captures the crowd,
By rounding the bases and kicking up dirt
He searches the bleachers….for one flannel shirt.
We liked Mickey, as he hobbled to first.
Then he stole Second, with an incredible burst.
Bent over and breathing, his hat far behind,
He finds his home,….I wish you’d find mine.
The stadium subway, it ran all of those years.
The Yankees played on, their legend endears,
To boys missing fathers, their substitute dad.
But Mickey grew old,….the Yankees got bad.
And then like the spring, he blew into town;
A straw that stirred oceans, seeking the crown.
But Reggie could swing, one night he hit three.
Ballet with a bat, I wished he were me.
Can a grown-man share love, that comes with a price;
Of sleeping with dogs and waking with lice.
Can dinner be supper with no one around.
No laughter, no bother, no head-aches, no sound.
Large knobby hands spilling life from a can;
Missed all of those years, now your boy is a man.
The Yanks never called….Jeter’s still there;
His uniform fits,….now that’s hardly fair.
I now have a son, we sit in the stands;
Watching our Yankees, holding our hands.
He looks like my dad, what little I knew;
Like missing the cut-off, the ball carries through.
To end up at home-plate, being safe with the slide.
Forget all the strike-outs, we won….Yankee pride.
The world that once was, is sometimes too near.
The noise makes it silent, the silence brings fear.
But the glass sitting empty, is you and not me.
For the cycle is broken, love set me free.
