Reviving the Art of Baseball Doggerel
By Stuart Shea
You can’t cut the lawn
Like Carlos Z. pitches.
You’d lose hold of the mower
And get 80 stitches.
You can’t do your taxes
Like Carlos Z. throws.
You’d ball up receipts
And punch your own nose.
You can’t do brain surg’ry
Like Carlos Z. hurls.
Your patients would die
While you did angry twirls.
But there’s nothing like watching the dervish in blue
When he harnesses everything that he can do.
Just ask HOU.
Posted 9/17/08
By Stuart Shea
Being a Dodger used to mean something.
The blue, white and red,
An American team playing the game the right way.
Jackie, Newk, Campy, Junior Gilliam,
Duke Snider and Carl Furillo.
Drysdale and Sandy,
An integrated team in Brooklyn.
When did it start
To fall apart?
When O’Malley ripped out the borough’s heart
And took his business to California,
Greedy and mean,
Displacing locals living in the ravine?
My dad, a Dodgers fan since the 30s,
Watched his team go from Wills, Davis, and Fairly
To Bob Bailor and Jack Fimple–
It was almost that simple.
He swore off the team in 1985
When they brought up some gawky-looking flotsam pitcher named Tom Brennan
Who was just trying to survive.
He raised his leg like a flamingo
And fluttered junk toward the plate.
“That’s not a Dodger,” Dad said,
And he was right. The old team was dead.
There was Gibson’s homer in 1989,
A thrilling victory, a special time,
For a team that wasn’t very good,
But had magic and Orel.
Then Peter O’Malley sold the club to Fox,
Who treated the franchise like a TV show,
Jumping the shark with grumps like Gary Sheffield,
Raul Mondesi, Kevin Brown, Chan Ho Park,
Four managers in five years wandering in the dark
And winning no titles until Frank McCourt bought in.
Now, they’re just another team,
Trading their magic beans
For vets like Nomar, Andruw,
And the worst: Manny Being Manny.
What does it mean to be a Dodger
When a jaker and malcontent
Can wear the same colors as Jackie?
That’s not what his example meant.
Posted 8/27/08Â
By Stuart Shea
The Cubs are the best team in baseball.
So good that your toes may curl.
I’m worried that we may be approaching the end of the world.
A black man may become president.
No matter what sludge Repubs hurl.
I’m worried that we may be approaching the end of the world.
The hole in the ozone layer is wide–
With enough space to fit Terry Forster inside
Our societies reek of fratricide
While starving untold millions have died.
Just like in Kinsella’s great story,
Those in control don’t know what to do.
All I know is that when we all go
We prob’ly won’t bleed Cubbie blue.
Â
Posted 8/15/08Â
By Stuart Shea
When was the last time you ran barefoot in the grass?
When was the last time you even threw a baseball?
Roll your fingers over the seams.
Try a fingertip knuckleball.
Pound your glove.
Think of your baseball days, before OPS and Direct TV
When you’d play all day until the sun went down
And even then you’d switch to ‘running bases,’ tossing the ball under the misty summer lamplight.
While other kids ran
And millions of bugs headed toward the bright.
And when everyone goes in for the night,
See if the Cubs game is still on.
They’re in Pittsburgh, blowing another lead in the ninth.
Jack Brickhouse is moaning. The bullpen crumbles.
And when it’s all over, and you’re exhausted with frustration
At Dave LaRoche and Oscar Zamora,
You realize there’s another game tomorrow, both for you and the big boys.
You knew NOTHING of the world at 12. But you knew baseball, and that’s what counted.
The game was an escape, a separate world with its own set of rules, a prism through which to look at your existence.
Organized rules, hope, glory, sunshine, and action.
Nothing like your own, seemingly arbitrary, life.
Which is why you needed it.
You’ll always need it to bring you back to joy, to freedom, to your own self.
For that skinny 12-year-old just begging for acceptance, begging to just be good enough at something.
And the game gave you hope.
So turn off the TV, the computer, the instant updates on your device
And play catch.
Just play catch.
It’s nice.
Unfortunately
The Indians see
Their destiny.
And obviously
It’s going to be
A white-flag party.
Apparently
They drink C.C.
in Milwaukee.
Posted 7/8/08Â