Here’s how it works:
It starts in the pickup games
In the schoolyard or the park
Where everyone can see
That you’re a player
And before you know it
You’re on some kids’ team
In an organized league
And you’re a genuine star
And then you’re in high school
And the scouts start coming around
And then you get signed
To a big league contract
After a year or two
In the minors
And when people look into the dugout
They see you there
Among grown men
In children’s pajamas
Spitting on the ground
For three straight hours
And occasionally
Patting each other’s asses.

Fred Russell is the pen name of an American-born writer living in Israel. His novels Rafi’s World (Fomite Press), dealing with Israel’s emerging criminal class, and The Links in the Chain (CCLaP), a thriller set in New York with an Arab-Israel background, were both published in 2014. His stories and essays have appeared in Third Coast, Polluto, Fiction on the Web, Wilderness House Literary Review, Ontologica, Unlikely Stories: Episode 4, Gadfly, Cultural Weekly, Ragazine, In Parenthesis, etc.

See also by Fred Russell:
Bleistein at the Royal Ballet,
Voltaire in England and
Hillary, Barack and John Square Off on a Show That Was Never Seen