The Two Doubles, The Hits My Father Paul Ryan Never Saw Poem by Dennis Ryan

Monday morning, January 23,2023 at 6 a.m.; Thursday morning, February 16,2023

The two doubles against Spencerport, the hits
my father Paul Ryan never saw that summer of 1968
of American Legion baseball, the games that went
unattended the one season I hit.413, outhitting
even our clean-up man Steve 'Luigi' Lewis, all
well-remembered, invoked here, this very moment,
valued, all highly valued, all his hours of thankless
labor in the pharmacy, Hall's Drugstore, Wellsville,
New York, so that Pat, Mary, Mike, Kathy and I could
attend university debt-free, his lifelong love, Notre Dame
football, buried deep, deep down inside of me. Water.
Of baptism. That Elm tree out in the front yard. A boy's
sense of wonder. Season of life. A full life, yet constant struggle. This cauldron of life's turmoil. A late, late rally.
Then finality. That final surrender on the date due.
Fell Death. As Shakespeare knew, it arriving much
too early. A four-post bed all that he left his wife
Ann Hathaway. And now, extra innings? Bottom
of the ninth, ‘two men aboard'. That clutch hit
to spur that late rally? The kind of pitch? Me trying
to discern what it is—fastball, slider, change, curve?
The coach giving signs from third. The catcher now
into his crouch, ready, giving the sign—one, two
or three fingers? Still so much to be decided...