RIP: A Sixty-Year Lament

by Robert Hilliard

They’re gone.
Pete, Pee-wee and Jackie
entertaining the
knothole gang
by crashing into walls,
hustling infield rollers,
and stealing home with a bang.

They’re gone.
Dolph and Cookie and Leo.
No Lip to the umps
No soda or peanuts or crackerjacks.
No cries from the
twenty-five cent bleachers seats
“Wait till next year!”
No more we’ll be chumps.

And Hoyt ain‘t hoit anymore.

They’re gone.
Van Lingle the Mungo and Sandy the K
and Campy, Newk, Preacher
and Mickey, who dropped the third out,
kicking the game away.

Even after Ralph hurled
the Shot Heard ‘Round the World
we were soothed by the guy in the catbird seat.
Red’s voice helped take away the heat.

There was sweet-swinging Duke
and Gil’s four in a game.
Why aren’t they
in baseball’s Hall of Fame?

We can still boo the Giants,
but it just ain’t the same.

Waiting year after year
for a moment delirious,
to root for the trolley boys,
at last, in 1955,
in the Woild Serious.

Finally, some fame,
more games to be won,
big houses to tally.
And the money ain’t lame.
But poof, they were gone,
a pox on O’Malley.

A pseudo-team now in LA
copping a cherished name.
An usurper.
A pretender.
A thief.
For shame!  For shame!

It’s gone.
They’re gone.
Rest In Peace Ebbets Field.
Rest In Peace Brooklyn Dodgers.