Moore, the 1952 Puliter Prize-winning poet, was an avid Dodgers fan until they left
Brooklyn. She switched her allegiance to the Yankees and threw out the first ball
in their 1968 opener. A Bryn Mawr graduate, she taught English at Carlisle Indian
School, where
Jim Thorpe was one of her students. One of her favorite players was
Whitey Ford: "Like Whitey's three kinds of pitch and prediagnosis with pickoff psychosis..."
She liked the precision positions of pitcher and catcher: "It's a pitcher's battle
all the way, a duel; a catcher's, as with cruel puma paw
Elston Howard lumbers lightly
back to plate." And she described a catch by
Mickey Mantle: "Mickey, leaping like
the devil, why gild it, although deer sound better, shares what was beating toward
its treetop nest, one-handing a souvenir to be, meant to be caught by you and me."
(NLM)
Marianne Moore
teams