The Shoebox - Day 27

Don Mattingly
1B - Yankees
#18, Topps/Quaker Oats, 1986

While Doug tosses warmups, you rock
your heels at second, and your left
hand strokes a chin still stinging
with Mennen. New York needs you
so dearly they will pay an extra
hundred eighty stumbling degrees
for every 4-3 putout. But no humble
greatness will buy you an inch
past the border of Yankee and bench.
Tradition is the tyranny of a sour
judge, a custom for men who fear
men. Patience is telling you to wear
the new-mown field of jawline
as testimony against times and seasons.
Nothing will cover your light
when it yearns to speak out.