{"id":1608,"date":"2011-04-07T14:04:26","date_gmt":"2011-04-07T14:04:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bportlibrary.org\/hc\/hc\/?p=1608"},"modified":"2011-04-07T14:04:26","modified_gmt":"2011-04-07T14:04:26","slug":"the-ghost-of-pembroke-street","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bportlibrary.org\/hc\/neighborhood-east-end\/the-ghost-of-pembroke-street\/","title":{"rendered":"The Ghost of Pembroke Street"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

One hundred and forty-nine<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

years old<\/p>\n

and Orator Jim O\u2019Rourke<\/p>\n

still kneels<\/p>\n

on deck<\/p>\n

in his turreted Pembroke Street<\/p>\n

home<\/p>\n

behind windows<\/p>\n

dark<\/p>\n

muttering<\/p>\n

seven syllable adjectives<\/p>\n

over his Bridgeport empire<\/p>\n

of Jersey barriers<\/p>\n

fitted to blockade suburbanite drug trade<\/p>\n

on the Park City\u2019s East Side<\/p>\n

O\u2019Rourke watches<\/p>\n

his Newfield neighborhood<\/p>\n

brood<\/p>\n

a hobbled ghost too<\/p>\n

where no one\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

plays New England Rules<\/p>\n

on the pavement of<\/p>\n

his family\u2019s vanished<\/p>\n

fields<\/p>\n

or cuts a swath<\/p>\n

through invisible acres<\/p>\n

of corn stalked early October<\/p>\n

where he learned Base-Ball<\/em>\u00a0and one day refused to sign<\/p>\n

until Middletown hired<\/p>\n

a farm hand<\/p>\n

for his \u2018dear ol\u2019 mither\u2019\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

and waving goodbye<\/p>\n

left home twenty-one years old<\/p>\n

arriving in the Hall of Fame<\/p>\n

on the other side of a forty-six year<\/p>\n

train ride<\/p>\n

along the Nineteenth century\u2019s<\/p>\n

tobacco and whiskey gilded<\/p>\n

base lines<\/p>\n

in the summers of the Mansfields Red Stockings, Grays<\/p>\n

Giants, Bisons<\/p>\n

Senators<\/p>\n

(gods so old<\/p>\n

they\u2019re only box score myths)<\/p>\n

O\u2019Rourke got the first National League hit<\/p>\n

playing every position<\/p>\n

gaining a Yale Law degree<\/p>\n

umping, owning<\/p>\n

founding<\/p>\n

a Connecticut League<\/p>\n

those twenty-three years in<\/p>\n

The Show<\/p>\n

all whittled down<\/p>\n

to his one senior citizen at bat<\/p>\n

at each Elk\u2019s Club season finale<\/p>\n

and the crowd<\/p>\n

who every Labor Day<\/p>\n

turn out<\/p>\n

(once in buggies now in Locomobiles)<\/p>\n

to cheer<\/p>\n

Bridgeport\u2019s barrister baseballer<\/p>\n

their Uncle Jeems<\/p>\n

Grand Old Captain of the Game<\/p>\n

Orator Jim O\u2019Rourke<\/p>\n

steps into the pitch<\/p>\n

and shies away<\/p>\n

from<\/p>\n

the window<\/p>\n

his uniform<\/p>\n

fading<\/p>\n

mingling with the October ruffled curtains<\/p>\n

once more<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Michael J. Bielawa<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One hundred and forty-nine years old and Orator Jim O\u2019Rourke still kneels on deck in his turreted Pembroke Street home behind windows dark muttering seven syllable adjectives over his Bridgeport empire of Jersey barriers fitted to blockade suburbanite drug trade on the Park City\u2019s East Side O\u2019Rourke watches his Newfield neighborhood brood a hobbled ghost […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[42,43,52,57],"tags":[74,86,108],"class_list":["post-1608","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-neighborhood-east-end","category-east-side","category-poetry-about-bridgeport","category-sports","tag-baseball","tag-bridgeport","tag-east-side-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bportlibrary.org\/hc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1608","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bportlibrary.org\/hc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bportlibrary.org\/hc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bportlibrary.org\/hc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bportlibrary.org\/hc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1608"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bportlibrary.org\/hc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1608\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bportlibrary.org\/hc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1608"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bportlibrary.org\/hc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1608"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bportlibrary.org\/hc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1608"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}