Five years before Pete Rose

I bought a box of baseball cards
at Tessie’s candy store
on the corner of Elizabeth
and Ohio Street for two dollars
with money I won pitching pennies,
forty packs frosted in glucose
and a yield of two-hundred players
my friends and I would swap
like big-league managers
making trades.

Sometimes
three or four Ernie Banks’ cards
turned up in one box –
bait for any Cubs’ addict
in 1958.

I was the only White Sox fan
on Elizabeth Street that year
taking a bus to Wrigley Field
with a bag of peanut butter
sandwiches for munching,
baseball cards for autographs,
and gum for wagering
on the game’s outcome.

I’d always arrive just in time
for batting practice.
I’d cheer for the challenger in town—
Reds, Braves, Giants… it didn’t matter—
amid jeers.

I’d bet forty sticks of gum
against the Cubs every game.
Like a sure steal, I’d come home
overdosed on sugar,
my jaws sore from chewing.

“Five years before Pete Rose” was originally published by Lake Shore Publishing, 1995.