BLACKBALL You can still hear them talking, The old-timers, between dusty midsummer innings, Looking, always looking, For some young kid whose style Can conjure up the magic of Moses Ruggle. Holy Mose hurled a legendary season For a backwater club in Gary, And then went East in 1910 To break into the majors By pitching a perfect game Before a wild Brooklyn crowd, Whereupon the owners met and sent him home, Promising to call and telling the press The league was open to any colored boy Who was qualified to play. Holy Mose was never called, Of course, leaving like summer's end Every mound and bullpen on earth. His ancestors, people say, Were the first black farmers In the State of Indiana, where the red men Told them a thing or two kept from Europeans, Truths about nature, the story goes, That were hidden in Ruggle's rising fastball (Whose sting on a cold day Broke the sound barrier over The inside corner of the plate) And in his hanging curve (By the way it sailed into the strike zone And dropped out of sight). He never threw junk, you hear people say, Every ball he ever pitched Had some iniquitous hitter's name on it. Next year, maybe, next year, Some rookie will throw like Mose, The difference being that Holy Mose Was never a rookie, And his mound was like a mountain, His stuff from on high, But he just couldn't find The Jim Crow section of the ball diamond. -- Thomas A. Orr, "Hammers in the Fog," pub. 1995, Restoration Press, Indianapolis, IN, posted by permission. Thomas Orr's Scottish ancestors emigrated to Northern Ireland and then to Orr Island, off the coast of ME in Casco Bay. Tom was born in Bangor, ME, grew up in the hill country of western MA, moved to Indianapolis, IN, in 1972. Tom, who spent 20 years in human services and work force development, has lived on a farm in Shelby Co. since 1986, raising rabbits and poultry. He is a member of the Writers' Center of Indianapolis.