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The first time I saw Nick Etten's picture
remains a fond memory of childhood.
Red bottomed 1943 stamp
with washed out colors of him gracefully
posed in lordly Yankee pinstripes, bat cocked,
a pulsing extension of his being.
Next year his twenty two homers were league high;
with Oakland's Oaks he scalded 43.
Fielding, Nick looked more at home in baggy
Phillie uni that seemed accessorized
with flopping shoes and squirting flower.
One day with the Yanks in between innings
he laid his glove in foul ground near the bag
and (MAN CLAWS CAT) a candy wrapper
flew into it. Next day Joe Trimble wrote,
"Etten's glove fields better without Etten".
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