Some memories refuse to stay buried in the dust, remaining long after the final inning has ended. This raw, beautiful piece was captured by Tim Peeler—a quiet testament to the life of my dear friend, Steve Lail. Steve was a true journalist, a teacher extraordinaire, and a soul who looked deeply into the world. Tim’s words hold the heavy, fragile atmosphere of Steve's final days, preserving a spirit that pain could never quite dim.
The Rainbow Kid Remembers Little League
For Journalist and Teacher Extraordinaire Steve Lail
A female friend tells me again
The games, the sports will pass,
Will never matter five years from now.
I agree, to be nice, But I know
In my testosterone-driven male heart.
It's hard to describe the smell in Steve's room,
The stale beyond stale of bedfast living.
The odor of bags, the sharp sterile smell of medical equipment,
the pain killers sweated out,
of air that simply can't
Move like it should when even the noise
From the hallway hurts.
He angles and re-angles the bed to curtail
The rage of pain that at fifty-two
Has haunted him for nineteen years.
He runs a shaky yellowed hand
He runs a shaky yellowed hand
Through his thick graying beard and manages
From weakness in a sly smile
In a voice that modulates
From weakness to solidity.
He drawls out another story for me,
From weakness in a sly smile
In a voice that modulates
From weakness to solidity.
He drawls out another story for me,
This one about a Little League baseball game,
We're talking 1950s, in which his team
Won the championship, and he got
We're talking 1950s, in which his team
Won the championship, and he got
Several hits, but the clincher,
The part that fueled his passion,
That nearly brought tears
Was that his Dad and his brother
Could not remember that game.
No matter how much detail he supplied,
Regardless of dates, names,
Or corroborative events.
Blame the pain,
Blame the pain,
Blame the morphine
If you will, but it galled him so much
That we had to change the subject,
To talk instead about some of the autographed pictures on the walls:
The cowboys, the pretty Women, the great comics
The cowboys, the pretty Women, the great comics
Ah, but that game was still on his mind.
Even when I squeezed his soft hand
And left his nursing home room.
Written by Tim Peeler
Tim Peeler is an award-winning poet, narrative writer, and educator rooted in the landscape of North Carolina. A past winner of the Jim Harrison Award for his contributions to sports and baseball literature, he is the author of over a dozen collections of poetry—including Touching All the Bases and West of Mercy. His work frequently explores the intersections of memory, regional history, and the quiet, heavy realities of rural lives. Five of his books reside in the permanent collection of the National Baseball Hall of Fame Library in Cooperstown, New York. When he isn't writing about the fragile, beautiful moments of human connection, he serves as an educator in Hickory, North Carolina.
Even when I squeezed his soft hand
And left his nursing home room.
Written by Tim Peeler
Tim Peeler is an award-winning poet, narrative writer, and educator rooted in the landscape of North Carolina. A past winner of the Jim Harrison Award for his contributions to sports and baseball literature, he is the author of over a dozen collections of poetry—including Touching All the Bases and West of Mercy. His work frequently explores the intersections of memory, regional history, and the quiet, heavy realities of rural lives. Five of his books reside in the permanent collection of the National Baseball Hall of Fame Library in Cooperstown, New York. When he isn't writing about the fragile, beautiful moments of human connection, he serves as an educator in Hickory, North Carolina.
