April 2011 – Page 2

Guess Which Pulitzer Winner Thinks Bardball is Cool?

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How many chances will Melky get
To try and make us forget?

Once a prospect,
Now he’s not.
As leadoff man,
He ain’t so hot.

Where’s the power he used to show?
Where’s the speed?
Why can’t he throw?

K.C. may be the last stop.
When will the penny drop?

Did the promising young righty
Think money was tight-y?
Is that why he tagged Macy’s
‘stead of runners on the base-ies?

‘Twas octval, and the pravish thrim
Did glate and glibble in the grome
All woolsy were the vitrenim
As the tegris wrast bethrome.

“Beware the Wockenfuss, my son!
The glove that claws, the cleats that slash!
Beware the corn-can-cut, and shun
The pronvistle mustache!”

He took the vorpal orb in hand:
Seeking with nails the laven stitch
And scrying he the fingers three
He gathered up to pitch.

A sinewed serpent’s coil, it stood
The Wockenfuss, with legs askew
It wiffled and glaved the winding wood
And ellipsed, as he threw.

One, two! And three! No contact he
The knuckleball went snicker-snack!
It spun in place, and in disgrace
It went galumphing back.

“Thou hast slain the Wockenfuss?
Hand me the sphere, my roogish gent.
Callooh! Callay! That’s all today.”
And to the showers he went.

‘Twas octval, and the pravish thrim
Did glate and gliddle in the grome
All woolsy were the vetrinem
As the tegris wrast bethrome.

Patrick Dubuque writes the blog The Playful Utopia.

There are no ties in baseball,
there is no ticking clock.
The game could continue forever.

One night in Rhode Island
the Rochester Red Wings
face the Pawtucket Red Sox.

A fierce wind invades the stadium,
numbing fans and players alike.
Make this one quick, everyone hopes.

Lights generate no warmth.
Fans applaud, the game begins.
Six scoreless innings, then Rochester drives in

a single run. Bottom of the ninth,
the PawSox also score a single run.
There are no ties in baseball,

there is no ticking clock. There are only
more chances. The extra innings creep
like icicles: tenth, eleventh, twelfth arrive

and depart with nothing but snowballs
to show: big, round, cold zeros.
At the end of eighteen innings

the score remains one-one.
The temperature drops to bathyspheric depths.
Players light bonfires in trash barrels,

burning broken bats as fuel. Fans go home
to furnaces that blast hot air.
Players long to go home, too, but first

one of them must cross home.
The stadium sells out of food. Clubhouse men
deploy into the frigid night and return

with chow the players bolt down. The game
goes on — four hours . . . five . . . six.
There are no ties in baseball,

there is no ticking clock.
And then, top of the twenty-first inning —
Rochester scores a second run.

Hallelujah!
The game will, at long last, be over.
Completed.

No. Not meant to be.
Pawtucket also scores a second run
in the bottom of the twenty-first. Game tied,