there were noises outside the basement window…
probably tanks rolling over gravel.
old Blinker let out a farmer’s blow of green slime and
snuck under his basement steps.
he flipped on a flashlight,
removed a box of 1974 Topps
and thumbed through them,
happy all over again that he was only missing two cards from the entire 660 card set –
number 13 – Tom Hilgendorf and
number 409 – Ike Brown
he wondered what the Hilgendorf and Brown cards looked like.
he’d never seen them.
head first dive into second?
batting cage casual?
contorted motion?
pitcher?
catcher?
the questions resurrected a no longer dead part of his mind.
sudden thoughts of Bill McNulty and his 55 homer season,
1974,
Pacific Coast League,
Sacramento Solons.
The Blinker rolled his fingers like a beginning piano player.
brewers baseball and things 
January 20, 2022 at 11:57 am
I enjoyed this short poem, because it reminds me of my first foray into cards – the 1978 Topps football collection. No matter how many 25 cent wax packs my parents bought for me, the Roger Staubach card never showed itself. The checklists told me it existed, but for me it was as elusive as those golden tickets to get into Willie Wonka’s Chocolate Factory.
January 20, 2022 at 5:09 pm
that’s it! as elusive as the golden ticket. that’s our card collecting euphoria/misery. mine was a 1980 Gorman Thomas. I couldn’t get the card in the packs and he was a Brewer and I was living in Milwaukee. Strange torture. Thanks for the comment Double K.
January 26, 2022 at 10:57 am
I loved those old stat lines from those mid-70s Sacramento teams guys like McNulty and Stormin’ Gorman putting up video game numbers before they even existed. I went back and looked at that season; the Solons had a pitcher named Gary Cavallo who had a 9.16 ERA–and a 7-5 record. That is poetry its ownself.
January 27, 2022 at 3:27 pm
Cavallo reminds of Vuke in 1982, his Cy Young year…18-6 with a WHIP of 1.502