Baseball-Motel Poem

 Canard

Back when I ran a motel,
We thrived on repeat guests—
Men who lingered at the desk,
Sharing confidences we took as fact
Mostly because they were nice fellows.

One of them—call him Dan—
A big, broad Irish American
Out of New York City, told us
He’d been the backup first baseman
For the Brooklyn Dodgers.
Damn if he didn’t look the part.
Damn if I didn’t buy it—
Until years later, when I finally learned
About the Baseball Encyclopedia.
Sorry. No Dan listed there.

At first the lie felt bigger than it was.
Later, on Baseball-Reference,
I found his minor-league line:
118 home runs—not nothing—
Seven seasons total, six of them
In the Brooklyn system,
Technically stuck behind Gil Hodges,
Just not on the same roster.

So not the towering fiction
I’d heard from other men
Who swore they’d made The Show.
And by the time I met Dan, in 1981,
He probably believed it himself.