Todd Fuller is a PhD graduate of Oklahoma State University. Other works have been published, in the Hawai'i Review, Puerto del Sol, South Dakota Review, Spoon River Poetry Review, and Third Coast.
Mr. Fuller also wrote a biography of Mose Yellowhose called 60' 6'' and Other Distances from Home: The (Baseball) Life of Mose YellowHorse
from which a movie screenplay is currently being written..
from which a movie screenplay is currently being written..
Ironies Named 1947 [Mose] YellowHorse Hitches to Post of Ponca City Groundskeeper"
—Al Kaff, The Sporting News, July 16, 1947
One
It's an hour before game time on April 15,And a man with a rake is smoothing
Infield dirt. And somewhere in the stands
A father will point him out, and a story
Will follow. The one about a Pawnee Indian
Striking out three future Hall of Famers
With nine undisguised fastballs, or maybe
The one about his beaning Ty Cobb right
Between the eyes. And the son will say
"Babe Ruth, Really?" And the father will
Nod, then say other names like Gehrig
And Lazzeri. He'll tell his son, "Ol' Mose
Threw as hard as Walter `Big Train' Johnson,"
And the boy will know that means
Ninety-Five Miles-an-hour.
Two
In thirty minutes the Ponca City diamond
Is littered with spit-shined baseballs in flight,
And somewhere in Brooklyn, 26,000 fans
Watch Jackie Robinson break the color barrier
With an 0-for premiere. And headlines in
Pittsburgh will be composed with Justice
In mind: Triumph Of Whole Race Seen
In Jackie's Debut. And parents will name
Their newborns after him. And the citizens
Of Cairo, Georgia are not surprised that
Little Jack Robinson's running like a damn
Gazelle around the bases. And half the fans
Jammed into Ebbets Field have a tear
For the moment. And someone's yelling
"Yonkel, Yonkel!" which is Yiddish
For Jackie.
Boys in Ponca City, Oklahoma will start
To fall asleep beside their radios, and they'll
Believe they saw a whale of a game
At Conoco Park, that the Oilers turned
Double plays just as slick as Reese to
Stanky to Robinson. And some announcer's
Voice will lull them into unconsciousness
With hyperbolic renditions of flying saucers
And alien landings. And Mose YellowHorse
Will return home four hours after the game
Is finished and settle his eyes onto an evening
Paper. There is talk of recently discovered
Biblical texts in Khirbet Qumran. In sports
The Pirates and Dodgers win. In weather
The hi-temp reaches 56. Out on the porch
The wind's carrying smells of rain; the swing's
Creaking like an old tree branch.
From Weber Journal Poetry Supplement, Summer 1999, Vol. 17
Excerpt from The Way Mose YellowHorse Learned How to Throw by Todd Fuller
