Dave’s Daily Dose

In high school in Brooklyn
I was the baseball manager,
proud as I could be
I chased baseballs,
gathered thrown bats
handed out the towels                        Eventually, I bought my own
It was very important work                but it was dark blue while
for a small spastic kid,                the official ones were green
but I was a team member                        Nobody ever said anything
When the team got                        to me about my blue jacket;
their warm-up jackets                        the guys were my friends
I didn't get one                        Yet it hurt me all year
Only the regular team                        to wear that blue jacket
got these jackets, and                        among all those green ones
surely not a manager                        Even now, forty years after,
                                        I still recall that jacket
                                        and the memory goes on hurting.
                -- Bart Lanier Safford III, "An Obscured Radiance"