PAD Day 7: A Bonus Poem for Baseball Season

So here's the other poem I decided to write, which more directly addresses the Poetic Asides "senses" prompt. It also ties into the NaPoWriMo prompt (see prior entry) because I put "Phillies fan" on both the "powerful" and "vulnerable" lists of my identities. So here you go:

Phillies Fan

It's a blessing and a curse

to root for a team that has lost

more than 10,000 games

in their century-plus existence,

but I have been lucky enough in my life

to witness two World Series titles.

(I can hear you Yankees fans snicker.)

Every year spring brings mixed emotions

of optimism and doubt. This year

there's a new manager, and some

bright new talent: Hoskins, Crawford,

Kingery and Nick Williams,

and some new veterans too,

like Arrieta and Carlos Santana.

But it also brings all the joys

of the ballpark, after a winter

of hibernation: our guys in red and white

trotting onto the field; the Phanatic,

pot-bellied, long-snouted, very green,

performing his usual antics;

the bat cracks, the cheers and boos

(Phillies fans don't hide their emotions);

the fly ball lofting into center field

that you pray will clear the fence;

the smell of popcorn and spilled beer;

the taste of a good beef hot dog;

squirming in a hard plastic chair

when things don't go so well,

and jumping out of it when they do.