In agate type the sports page lists
Transactions—so and so traded,
someone put on injured reserve,
another waived out of the league.
Such lists uncover the sadness
of change and separation—ourown lives dwindling into fine print
with the aging bonus baby
sent down to double A, his great
hopes and ours a faint blur
on page four. We think of such players
gone to a kind of limbo, bat
and ball denied them, carrying
only their scuffed shoes down some road
of sore arms and bad knees. We eke
out our days among the injured
reserves—like us they may be fit
some day—but feel ourselves sliding
toward the saddest of all,
that invisible leavening of alltrades during the hot stove league,
players who don't even have names,
the players to be named later.
from the book, "The Moment's Equation" by Vern Rutsala
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