Reed Palmer: a name that shall live in . . .
well, probably in a cardboard box in Dan Price's house.
Reed Palmer holds the Tucson Old Timers record for home runs in a year, at twenty, set today, with still a month to go.
The hard part is convincing Reed that he will not be allowed to pay for the balls lost over the fence, out to the road, on their way to Grandmother's house, somewhere out there in the woods (or for what counts as woods, in Tucson, where the most common trees have cactus spines).
Reed pitched, too.
He holds the record for . . .
well, for games pitched by Reed Palmer.
well, probably in a cardboard box in Dan Price's house.
Reed Palmer holds the Tucson Old Timers record for home runs in a year, at twenty, set today, with still a month to go.
The hard part is convincing Reed that he will not be allowed to pay for the balls lost over the fence, out to the road, on their way to Grandmother's house, somewhere out there in the woods (or for what counts as woods, in Tucson, where the most common trees have cactus spines).
Reed pitched, too.
He holds the record for . . .
well, for games pitched by Reed Palmer.
It is easy to be glad for Reed.
He makes it easy.
There is no show-boating.
When he comes out of the dugout,
he does not doff his cap,
no matter how loud the fans in the stands cheer.
Most of the time, the fans are outnumbered
by the dogs on leashes, anyway.
It is about a 1:1.5 ratio.
That was not the whole game, of course.
Blue now shows up better
against the fading grass
than does white chalk.
The guy from the Park District
says he doesn't need no stinkin' string
just to go right down the line:
he lines up the yellow foul pole
with a mountain peak down by Nogales:
saves a lot of time; makes for
a longer coffee break.
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| Living Breathing Tradition |
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