Gerry and Reuven Goldfarb
and we were bored.
You didn’t get a hit for us,
but we screamed our guts out,
even when you struck out or caught a routine fly.
That’s when you acknowledged us,
tipping your cap, your first time, maybe,
to our motiveless persistence.
The next day, in the Post, a columnist noted,
“One pleasant development was the reaction
accorded Gino Cimoli by many of the fans.”
It was only us in the left field grandstand,
four schoolboys inciting the crowd
to cheer the rookie in the outfield.
We did a job, but you didn’t stick.
(The Dodgers always had trouble with left field.)
You went to the Cards, I think,
then dropped out of the game.
You were a graceful ball-hawk.
You were handsome, dark in the Ebbets Field sun.
We would have made you a good fan club,
bewildering even ourselves by our partisanship.
On April 15, 1958, Cimoli became the first Major League batter to step into the batter’s box (he was was the lead-off batter in the Dodgers’ first game after moving West) on the West Coast when the Los Angeles Dodgers and the San Francisco Giants played their first game of the season at Seals Stadium in San Francisco. He also scored the final run at Ebbets Field in Brooklyn./em>
