Baseball

Pressure
Bases are loaded
2 outs
Down by 1
Everyone stares at me
Sweat drips down my face
Muscles tense tight
Pitcher sets
Watch the ball
Here it comes
Pick the location up
Fastball all the way
It arrives
Swing!
Ball hits my bat like a bug hits a windshield
Take off!
Flies over shortstop
Then left field
It’s going!
It’s off the wall!
Runner from third scores easily
Hits the cutoff
Runner from second rounds third
We’re at a stand-still
It’s a race between the ball and the base runner
They both arrive at home
Catcher brings down his glove
Goes for the tag
Missed!
Our team wins!
You can seen the look of defeat in the other team
I get carried off the field
Then I wake up
And get ready for the day

Hello, Onthemound21! Welcome to YWS. Just a quick reminder before I take a look at your poem for you, we do have Rules and Regulations that must be read. You can find these at the Welcome Desk. Specifically, it is asked that people review 2 pieces for every piece they post. Alliteration or what? But seriously, it would be awesome if you took a look.

On to the poem. Well, it's pretty obvious you love baseball. I'm not wrong, am I? It's cool that you write about what you love, it really gives a piece a backbone. I do have some suggestions about it though. Lets take a look.

1. Structure. The way the piece structured is quite off putting. The term 'shopping list' comes to mind. Poetry is famous for being free and wild at times, but in this case, I really think a comma and normal punctuation here and there would really give it more of an opportunity. The more chances you give you work- i.e, the more time you put in, and effort- the better it will be viewed by others.

Let me give you an example.

The first three lines are kind of hard on the eyes.

Bases are loaded

2 outs

Down by 1

I'm not going to go into the whole 'you shouldn't use numbers to display numbers in poetry'- but personally, I wouldn't do it. This is how I would have wrote it. By the way, feel completely free to ignore my suggestions or re-working. That's a given.

Bases are loaded,

two outs,

down by one.

It just looks nicer. I'm a sucker for presentation.

2. Show, don't tell. I'm sorry, but yes, I went there. Just kidding. I'll not harp on about this, because I understand it's a sports poem and sometimes it's very, what you see is what you get, but I think you could have developed on a few points here- used a bit more imagery, maybe picked up on other sights in a baseball pitch. Like, what does the grass smell like? You mentioned the sweat rolling down your face, that was good, what else can you feel?

3. Imagery. I think this could have been developed on. Most of your images were clear, but sometimes, they were borderline cliché.

I'd re-work this line:

Ball hits my bat like a bug hits a wind shield.

4. Length. It was a little long for my liking. Perhaps with revision you could chop, dare I say it, a few unnecessary lines here and there.

This was a very good, unique piece. I chose it to read because I rarely read poetry based on sport. The two rarely seem to go together. This had a lot of strong points- it had honest, and pace, and kept me reading until the end. My suggestions are, as a said- suggestions. You're the poet.

Keep writing and playing baseball!

And welcome to YWS. PM me if you need advice or just want to chat.

Eimear.

Okay, nice! Like your idea, but, to me it needs more structure. Use a thesauraus and replace some word to make them better! You should make it more intense!
"It’s off the wall!

Runner from third scores easily

Hits the cutoff

Runner from second rounds third

We’re at a stand-still

It’s a race between the ball and the base runner

They both arrive at home

Catcher brings down his glove

Goes for the tag

Missed!

Our team wins!"

Nice and intense! But make more descriptive!