Playing Stickball With Robbie Shea by Mark Lukeman on Baseball Almanac

Playing Stickball With Robbie Shea by Mark Lukeman

Many great men and women have written entire books about every aspect of the game; however, other than "Casey At Bat," few know about some of the other great poems that have appeared honoring our national pastime. Listed below is the baseball poem: Playing Stickball With Robbie Shea.

"bat with a pitchfork handle..." - Mark Lukeman

Published: Stickball (1988)

At the wall
we play suburban stickball,
bat with a pitchfork handle
my grandfather
cut from his garden.
We pitch
tennis balls
light
as crisp apples.
Strips of electrical
tape
mark the strike zone
against
red school brick.
Rob throws strikes.
I swing hard
and miss. Robbie is so much better than me.
But today
the sky is blue,
summer is in our bones,
and so many things don't count yet.

Playing Stickball With Robbie Shea by Mark Lukeman

Did you play stickball when you were growing up? Share your childhood memories of the game on our message board.

A television commercial which aired during the 2000 season stated that Willie Mays would often play stickball in the morning then go to the ballpark to play outfield for the New York Giants.

In 1959, sportswriter Jimmy Cannon of the San Francisco Cal-Bulletin asked Mays about those stickball days and he simply replied, "The kids don't play stickball here. The streets are too hilly."

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