Slow Pitch

Before Dizzy & Daffy,
Maris & Mantle
Bonds & McGwire,
before TV showed us
baseball's seedy & greedy side,
I taught two talented groups
of the sporting life in Texas:
jocks & beautiful girls.

Baseball players,
lackadaisical learners,
seemed secure in a simple desire---
earn a passing score.
Always dressed to the nines,
the beauties spent
their days dreaming
how to spend $1000 a month
allowances provided by rich oil papas
and sizing up options as tycoons' wives
or mates of men dreaming of major league
stardom by polishing their curve, slider,
and fast ball.

Like dense pitchers shaking
off signs from cagey catchers
the ball players seemed almost
oblivious of fast balls thrown
their way every class by beautiful
curves from across the aisles.

I never knew who scored or struck out.