After a single, he stood on first base. His friend grinned at him. They stood near a bag, making dinner plans after spending 9 months of 2011 together. Digesting Waffle House burgers while sitting on buses from Toledo to Louisville,…
Author: olabner
Welcome! I've followed baseball since I was 8 years old and started this site to illustrate the beauty of the game in prose, poetry, and photography.
I have a Master's in Creative Writing at Missouri State University. For my thesis I wrote a collection of nonfiction micro essays about working in remote Alaska fishing lodges for five summers in my 20s.
After graduation I worked as a northern lights guide in Bettles, Alaska, for 8 months.
I am a freelance writer and photographer based in the Ozarks. You can find my portfolio at maryellenchiles.com
Giants and Padres: Tyler Lindsey cracked a sinking line drive to left. Jarrett Parker dove into the grass, hat jostling, and misplayed the ball. Angels and A’s: Tyler Landendorf knocked a ball to right center, sliding safely into third after…
Is it possible to follow baseball without turning into a hopeless romantic? I haven’t penned so much poetry since 8th grade. But somehow I was able to stand alone in a bookstore, reading about a player who cheated and lied….
The spring has started, with flowers, allergies, light. Pitchers and catchers. You come, too. Truly, there is no sight sadder than one baseball glove. No sight more grand than a familiar figure scraping the dirt and flinging a ball back…
There was much to consider before the field could be used again: References, relief, reports, reviews. Holidays, perhaps. Trips home and trips home again. Football jammed into brains for 4 days each week. But if you had a place to…
Pitchers and catchers will report in two weeks or so. There will be no more tears. Except in Chicago. No more floundering for ways to write about how laces blur into a satellite on the journey home. No more watching…
I’ve been watching the lights shine from the stadium. Most of it looks safe. It’s the place next door that looks menacing: It’s got a beast, a bam and boom, after all. But in the first place, there’s hope. Men…
From here you can see the sun glinting off the silver boxes that say 26, 27, 28. You’re in the right row, gentle fan. But I’d walk closer. Stepping down the concrete. And I’d sit a few rows behind the…
I wrote this for my hometown newspaper after Oscar Taveras died. http://www.news-leader.com/story/opinion/contributors/2014/11/04/fear-derail-taveras/18479259/ by
We know how it all ended at this point. Not with Bobby Thomson, but with Travis Ishikawa. His footsteps muffled by the shouts of his teammates crowding home plate. Though his run didn’t matter, nor the man who walked in…