Reviving the Art of Baseball Doggerel
Do Cubs have the pen to match Nats?
Don’t snub common sense and quote stats
The numbers you crunch
Are dumb as a hunch
It comes down to men, balls, and bats.
It’s October, and that means a month of monstrous limericks on Hilary’s hilarious LimerWrecks page.
As the leaves turn from green to brown
And we rekindle antipathy for Joe Buck
Let’s recall players whose careers are done
And their stories of drive and hope and luck.
Jered Weaver, strikeout ace,
Can now just putter around his place.
Atlanta’s Frenchy, Jeff Francouer
Will now as a TV color man tour.
SF fans can thank Matt Cain
For embiggening the Jints again.
Likewise, Ryan Vogelsong
Can practice bird calls all day long.
Joe Nathan will have to find his thrill
Somewhere other than the bullpen hill.
And Nick Swisher, quintessential bro,
Will just leave a trail of grit where’er he goes.
To these and all other retirees
Thank you for the thrilling years.
Now, with us, relax near the TV,
Watch some playoff ball and enjoy some beers.
Max Scherzer’s hammie has a “tweak”
Something we’ll hear of all week
But the real speculation, my dear, is
“How will Dusty blow this series?”
Last Jints game of season,
One far less than pleasin’
With my cat, listen to game at home.
In this year of duress
Think it’s best I address
Feelings of this lost season in poem.
What happened to Giants
Defies BASEBALL science,
At least baseball science I know.
Headlines writ, couldn’t predict,
Absolute Throne’s edict:
“By Imperial ‘We’: Jints Shall Blow!”
(In case you’re confused,
Only three persons used
“The Imperial We,” Mark Twain said:
Absolutes in their realm,
Editors at the helm,
And those people with lice on their head!)
Since ’09, Jints’ best run:
Next eight years, three Crowns won–
Ninth year, pay butcher’s bill overdue.
It’s the stark final act
Of team’s Faustian pact,
Signed when offered, like most all would do.
Giants under-performed,
Strickland threw, Harper stormed,
I consider Jint’s Pitch-of-the-Year
Moore’s “Little League Double,”
Peaked “Jints’ Year of Trouble,”
Same game Buster’s beaned, since…it’s unclear.
Best position this year
Is at backstop, that’s clear,
Backup Hundley deserved “Willie Mac,”
And though Posey well hit
Power stroke went to shit.
Buster needs Nick to re-up and come back.
Backstops dinged up each game.
Soon they aren’t quite the same,
And we know, catcher’s hands first to go.
Hadley threw, Cochrane’s bumped,
“Iron Mike” quickly slumped,
Never was quite the same in the Show.
Too many got old,
Couldn’t be traded or sold,
Some hung on long past time to let go.
Few times team had hot spurt,
Shot when one hot got hurt,
No one picked up slack, down went the Show.
Team’s defense proved porous,
Outfield naught but tsuris,
Even Crawford’s play appeared unsteady.
Farm hands got their chance,
Called up to Big Dance,
They got hurt or showed they weren’t ready.
Starting pitchers, team’s strength
Thin in stretch, without length,
Bullpen overtaxed, oft over-ruled.
Belt’s, Panik’s concussion,
Hunts year-long discussion:
This Hot Stove, how are Giants retooled?
How will team be remade?
Sign free agents? Big trade?
Who will be on the roster next year?
Crawford, Mad Bum, Posey
Are “Untouchable Three,”
Still, one hundred games lost, nothing’s clear…
Holy shit, season ends
With blast Prodigal sends
To same place Pablo blasted Verlander.
With Friday’s game seized,
Matt Cain’s last start stress,
Panda provides poetic year-ender.
Thus ends “Season of Woe,”
Need break from Giant show,
Team is dead, no live games: Third and King;*
Still more likely than not,
Ere my cold stove gets hot,
I’ll be in training long before spring.
PS:
MVPs of Jints’ year
Are to me these four here:
Broadcasters Miller, Kruke, Kuip and Flem.
Kept me fully engaged,
All year channeled my rage,
I might have disengaged, but for them.
______________
* If Elwood Blues moved to San Francisco, California Nazis would look for him at the Willie Mays Statue located at the intersection of Third and King, the location AT&T Park, home of the San Francisco Giants.
In the Giants honor, when the city erected the statue of at the Park’s front entrance, they renamed it 24 Willie Mays Plaza.