Standin' on the Corner

An outstanding example of outdoor, public art is entitled GOD BLESS AMERICA by J. Steward Johnson, dated to 2005. For the past couple of years, this statue, inspired by Grant Wood's AMERICAN GOTHIC, has stood outside Tribune Tower on Michigan Avenue in Chicago. Its time expired, the work was packed up and gone without a word about its destination.
Without a word, that is, until a week before I headed out to spring training. It was located by Phil Velasquez, a TRIBUNE photographer, about a mile south of HoHoKam Park. Looking at the suitcase with its travel labels as seen in the full length photo, I realized that the travels of the artwork demanded a response. My photo of the suitcase has magically gained the two missing labels that I know of!

Sunset on the Desert

On my itinerary for the Spring Training Trip to Mesa, I had included an effort to shoot some sunsets in the desert area. Since two of the three evenings would be devoted to baseball games, I set out for some pictures before dinner, with what I thought was plenty of time to locate an angle and a vista to feature in the sunset pictures.

While I am quite pleased with several of the images I collected, it was a wild but short chase. For one thing, the maps had indicated to me the location of various mountains right in the area, ones that had streets and development built right up to the edges. After I left the motel, I headed west to get out of Tempe and found myself behind one of the mountains. Driving a bit quickly to clear the obstacle I found that in my non-scientific opinion, light falls quite quickly on the desert. Perhaps it is the city boy in me seeing a difference, and perhaps the trip being within a week of the equinox had a effect, but it was a palpable difference to me.

Difference enough to generate this poem:

NIGHT FALLS QUICKLY

Night falls quickly on the desert with a perceptible though silent thud,
No lingering sunset, no streaks of tardily-departing light;
Almost as if someone had flipped a light switch and set it to
Off.

Mesa Historical Museum

With my All Baseball All-the-Time Spring Training trip on its last day, I had a stop scheduled at the Mesa Historical Museum. Any museum that allows photography is likely to be worth a visit, but one that has an exhibit devoted to spring training baseball -- the so-called Cactus League -- had to be on my itinerary. It was well worth the visit, which was sandwiched between minor league practice and a Subway lunch and before the minor league games.

The baseball exhibit was not large but informative and had several photographs of Ernie Banks along with other stars. A nice collection showed several stages of turning a slab of hardwood into a baseball bat and they selected Banks for that display as well, a nice touch for me. The other rooms showed various items of interest to Mesa history, and wrapped around the outside of the museum is a collection of various farm implements that helped develop a city in the midst of a desert. Interesting and eye-catching.

Only a week ago I was headed for the museum and now I have processed my pictures and published my poems. A real whirlwind of a spring vacation. Some poems from Mesa:

SURPRISE ARIZONA

One of the suburbs of Phoenix on the Cactus League map is Surprise,
But I found my surprise in Mesa rather than in Surprise.
The air was hot even though just about eighty, no surprise;
The lack of humidity meant you would not sweat, no surprise;
Night falls quickly and turns quite cool, also no surprise.
I pulled out of the stadium lot today, drove along the Mesa Cemetery,
And noticed that dozens if not hundreds of gravesites are flooded,
Hidden under several inches of standing water. Surprise!

ALL BASEBALL

A lone poet on a baseball vacation, just three days but filled with action,
All baseball, all the time, no exception, be it three big league games,
Be it two minor league practices or two minor league games,
Be it an old-timers game with pictures and autographs,
Be it a visit to a softball field dressed as Yankee Stadium,
Or be it a trip through a local museum on Cactus League Baseball.
All baseball, all the time, extends even to lunch away from the park
Spent reading Shoeless Joe; extends even to the writing of this poem.

FARM IMPLEMENTS

Visiting Mesa for Chicago Cub Spring Training, I included the Museum
Which features a school-room sized exhibit of baseball pictures,
Enjoying the fact that Ernie Banks and the Cubs are features of the show.
After a turn through the rooms one should look at the outside collection,
Threshers and tractors and seeders and cultivators and sowers
All corroding in silence under the relentless Arizona sun.
Once I got home I looked at the photos and wondered
How tough were the settlers who took on the desert,
Defeating the sand and the sun and the drought to carve out a home,
And as I thought about the tools in the museum yard, I thought
Congratulations and Rust in Peace.

Future Cubs Up Close?

One of the highlights of my spring training experience was Fitch Park, known for years to me as the "minor league camp" but with no idea of how much could be learned and seen at the camp. Four teams -- Iowa (AAA), Tennessee (AA), Daytona (A) and Peoria (A) -- work out at 9:00 AM on four diamonds,with all the backstops together. Well over 120 players are there, sometimes staying on an assigned diamond and sometimes moving in groups from place to place as the practice runs through its schedule. Each diamond eventually moves into batting practice and then breaks for lunch after 11:30.

Most days the two fields to the north will then feature minor league games at 1:00. Basically, the AAA & AA stay home while the two A teams travel or vice-versa. On Thursday, the Cubs sent the older teams to the Angels complex and the two A teams hosted the Angels. For a fan used to major league games in major league parks, the ability to get up close is unprecedented. It is easy to see the great plays and the errors, the tough pitches and the candy pitches, the great swings and the awkward swings. From right up close.

I already have plans to go to see the Kane County Cougars when they host the Peoria Chiefs this summer. Two prospects I was quite impressed with should be playing here on their way to the major leagues. Trades happen and prospects sometimes don't work out, but I think these two will look great in Cub uniforms in two years. Everyone knows the name Josh Vitters, first round pick third baseman who was rumored to be headed to San Diego in a proposed Peavy trade. He looks to be the real thing and has a major league swing. Catcher Mike Brenly, son of color announcer Bob Brenly, is about 6'3" and looks solid behind the plate, strong throwing, and a major league potential batter. It was great to see these stars up close and playing hard. Best of luck to them and to their teammates.

Next post on a neat museum in Mesa, longtime spring home of the Cubs.

Cubs Win in Mesa

My first day of my first spring training was fantastic. Perfect weather, a nice seat in the shade, lots of runs leading to a Cub win (even though the games don't count, it is fun to win when you flew four hours to get here). Pre-season baseball is more enjoyable than I pictured it: the field is in perfect shape, the fans are friendly and knowledgeable, and no one appears to be there to be seen or to be drinking too much. Everyone seems to be celebrating the end of a tough season called winter and the start of the following season called baseball.

Alfonso Soriano lead off the Cub first with a shot down the line as he had two hits and two walks. Several Cubs had hits and several pitchers did reasonably well. After the game, the traffic is minimal and a short stop at the souvenir shop will get you to a fairly empty parking lot. Empty of most cars, as you can see, but not empty. I watched this Dad and his son play catch in 2009 and I remembered my son and me in 1979. Baseball. Always and forever, the national pastime and the perfect game.

Next post will be about another ballfield I visited later that night. A surprise located on the Internet, visited in hopes it would even be open on a March night, and ending with (of all things) a hit.