Reviving the Art of Baseball Doggerel
Bud Abbott befuddled poor Lou
With bit about first baseman Who.
. What once was absurd
. Today has occurred
“Hey, Abbott! On first base is Hu!”
For the picture that Abbott & Costello never lived to see, as well as a great modern retelling of their classic routine, check out this post by PeteyHendrix at Red Reporter.
Cliff Lee put the “Lee” into “lean,”
So Aroldis picked him off clean.
. Now no ducks on the pond
. But the Phils did respond,
With the Kratz-Galvis Longball Machine!
The possibility of spring,
The pristine arm
Has ’em on a string,
With no elbow damage
And no harm
The Mets’ good luck charm
The golden child,
Good fastball, good poise
And not wild.
Lots of noise
From da NYC,
They’re never mild
When they’ve got a live one
Who hasn’t yet even begun.
The burden of hard hitting. Slug away
. Like Honus Wagner or like Tyrus Cobb.
Else fandom shouteth: “Who said you could play?
. Back to the jasper league, you minor slob!”
. Swat, hit, connect, line out, get on the job.
Else you shall feel the brunt of fandom’s ire
. Biff, bang it, clout it, hit it on the knob—
This is the end of every fan’s desire.
The burden of good pitching. Curved or straight.
. Or in or out, or haply up or down,
To puzzle him that standeth by the plate,
. To lessen, so to speak, his bat-renoun:
. Like Christy Mathewson or Miner Brown,
So pitch that every man can but admire
. And offer you the freedom of the town—
This is the end of every fan’s desire.
The burden of loud cheering. O the sounds!
. The tumult and the shouting from the throats
Of forty thousand at the Polo Grounds
. Sitting, ay, standing sans their hats and coats.
. A mighty cheer that possibly denotes
That Cub or Pirate fat is in the fire;
. Or, as H. James would say, We’ve got their goats—
This is the end of every fan’s desire.
The burden of a pennant. O the hope,
. The tenuous hope, the hope that’s half a fear,
The lengthy season and the boundless dope,
. And the bromidic; “Wait until next year.”
. O dread disgrace of trailing in the rear,
O Piece of Bunting, flying high and higher
. That next October it shall flutter here:
This is the end of every fan’s desire.
ENVOY
Ah, Fans, let not the Quarry but the Chase
. Be that to which most fondly we aspire!
For us not Stake, but Game; not Goal, but Race—
. THIS is the end of every fan’s desire.
Franklin Pierce Adams was a columnist and prolific doggerelist, best known for “Baseball’s Sad Lexicon (Tinker to Evers to Chance)”. This poem is from his book In Other Words (1912).
I know our mortal trial’s done
Eternal judgment just beginning
When Verlander walks in two runs
And gives up seven in one inning.