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Book of the Week – Play Ball: Baseball Haiku by Cor van den Heuvel

Cor van den Heuvel was known as Dutchy when he caught for the Comets, a sandlot team in Dover, NH. In a memorable game against the Somersworth Saints, he threw out two runners trying to steal second, effectively discouraging any other such attempts, and hit a game-winning homer. Lefty Allen held the Saints to five hits and one run and Bomb-Bomb Lewis made a spectacular catch when he ran into a tree at the fields edge to rob the Saint’s power hitter George Pelletier of a home run. Dutchy’s homer was a long drive into Willand’s Pond in the bottom of the ninth to win the game 2-1.

In later life, Cor van den Heuvel is the editor of The Haiku Anthology … His own haiku books have won three Merit Book Awards from The Haiku Society of America.

Play Ball: Baseball Haiku was published by Red Moon Press in 1999.

Following are a few selected poems from the book:

lingering snow
the game of catch continues
into the evening

—

baseball cards
spread out on the bed
April rain

—

summer afternoon
the long fly ball to center field
takes its time

—

9th inning
moths fly around
the ballpark lights

—

snowstorm
a baseball glove
under the Christmas tree

You can read the entire book in the THF Digital Library and please share your favorite poem from the book with us.

Do you have a chapbook published in 2018 or earlier that you would like featured as a Book of the Week? Contact us for details. Haiku featured in the Book of the Week Archive are selected by the THF Digital Librarian Kenneth Pearson and are used with permission.

Kenneth Pearson

Comments (2)

  2. I grew up in Belgium as baseball the only sport to play at the International School of Brussels. To this day, it is a passion of mine, and I have written many baseball-ku. It always makes me smile to see others who share this positive addiction.

    I would like a link to the THF Digital Library to read all of Cor’s book, Play Ball.

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