“Let’s Play Two!”

By Dr. Rajesh C. Oza

Ernie Banks wanted
To play a doubleheader
Every day, because

He loved baseball so
Much that one was not enough
To satisfy him.

Wilbur Wood lost two
Games of a doubleheader.
He started both games,

Throwing his trademark
Knuckleball ball to twenty-four
Wins, twenty losses.

Billy Williams and
Ron Santo played every game
In 1965.

Perhaps a couple
Players will play all the games
In 2024.

Ferguson Jenkins
Threw 29 complete games
In 1974.

MLB may not
Have 29 complete games
In 2024.

So why does baseball
Today give hitters days off
And pitchers pitch counts?

Is Pampers part of
How managers lead their teams?
Or a diaper brand?

Dr. Oza’s novel Double Play sits at the intersection of Ernie Banks’ Cubs, the Negro Leagues, riding the El, wrongful convictions, immigration and friendship. It will be published in October 2024 by Chicago’s Third World Press.

 

White Sox Brownfield

by James Finn Garner

Eloy was my boy
His power was a gimme
A South Side homeboy
Just like Pico and Timmy.

These faces are all gone — oy!
Ruined, traded, DFA’d.
The advice of Sox coaches, boy,
Should make any player afraid.

Now there’s no joy
At 35th and Shields
Hope is destroyed
At Fill-in-the-Blank Field.

Should we ask the batboy?
Maybe he has a solution.
The EPA should deploy
To contain this pollution.

All-Star Clerihews #1: Clerihew Resurrection

Tarik Skubal
Is always hungry for noodles.
Chow mein, soba, udon, ramen–
He just tells the waiter, “Keep it comin’!”

Garrett Crochet
Thinks those edible bouquets
Are a colossal waste.
“How much cantaloupe can one person taste?”

Seth Lugo
Reads a lot of Victor Hugo
Daydreaming of an understudy job
With “Les Misérables.”

Shōta Imanaga
Loves the generosity of Chicaga.
He never has to scrounge
To pay for a beer at the Nisei Lounge.

Darn Sox

by Greg Simetz

“Say it ain’t so,”
a kid once asked Shoeless Joe
the year the White Sox turned to black

The same could be asked
of the current Sox cast
filled with the lame, the halt and hacks

So laughter erupts
when owner Reinsdorf instructs
he’ll move the team south to Tennessee

If a new stadium isn’t built
and financed to the hilt
with Illinois taxpayer’s sucker money

But a record-setting pace
in a season of historic disgrace
makes 120+ defeats a bona fide threat

So Jerry, pack your hitless wonders
and move instead to baseball’s dumpster,
next to the more lovable ‘62 Mets.