Behind the Mask
David Stephenson

I know a strike’s supposed to cross the plate

between the knees and chest. It’s in the book.

But this is Pee Wee League, and I get paid

eight bucks a game, however long it takes.

So I’ve improved upon the basic rule:

a strike is any pitch I think a kid

can hit; they’d better swing if it looks close.

It leads to active and efficient play.

The players and the coaches seldom gripe;

they quickly grasp the concept and adjust.

The parents are the ones who get wound up,

complaining that I’m ruining the game,

coming with the rule book to explain,

addressing me as “son,” which I dislike.

Sometimes they say they’ll call the league or school

and get me fired, but no one’s done it yet.

Now when I spot a likely candidate

who’s plainly building up a head of steam

I sometimes shade a call to set him off,

just so we get that part out of the way.

It’s not a good habit to get into,

but I like feeling like I’m in control

and after the first time it’s hard to stop.

When I grow up, I’m going to be a cop.

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David’s notes: “I worked a lot of random menial jobs when I was in high school. The oddest one was umpiring grade school baseball games. It wasn’t full time but it paid what I considered to be good money back then—well above minimum wage, provided you had the foresight to shorten the game by reimagining the strike zone as described in the poem. The poem is exaggerated because I didn’t have problems every game, more like every fifth one. Also, I didn’t shade calls to upset people on purpose; they got mad on their own, usually when their team was losing. I often strucrure a poem like a joke, with a setup and a punchline, and in this case the first 23 lines are basically there to set up the last one.

“This poem was originally published in Blue Unicorn in October, 1999, but this version is from a revision I made in 2019 when I was thinking of including it in my collection Wall of Sound. I ultimately left it out, but looking at it now I’m having regrets.“

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David Stephenson is a retired manufacturing engineer from Detroit, and the editor of Pulsebeat Poetry Journal. His latest collection is Secret Dance.

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Behind the Mask David Stephenson

Behind the Mask
David Stephenson