Reviving the Art of Baseball Doggerel
The transistor radio
I smuggled into
Sister Geraldine’s class
Broadcast heavenly images
The centerfielder moved to short
The old lion roaming in right
The mighty arms of Willie the Wonder
The soulful stare of Lolich
The plate protected by Freehan
(None shall pass)
All the saints and martyrs
Bringing a miracle to Motown
Narrated by the voice of God
In his sweet Georgia drawl
In striking distance?
Detroit below five hundred
Yet nearing Cleveland
One big swing of the bat,
But instead of making good contact,
It’s a ruptured bicep tendon
Which ends Cabrera’s season.
As said by one baseball pundit:
“There goes Detroit’s offense–
All of it.”
“Is there a way to stop the Sox,
And strew their pennant path with rocks?”
An alien rooter asked one day.
A White Sox rooter heard the quiz,
And promptly said, “You bet there is;
Jot this down as the only way:
Choke Eddie Collins til he’s dead. Shoot Happy Felsch right in the head.
Send Weaver on an ocean trip and have a U-boat sink the ship.
Feed Gandil pork chops, fat or lean, in which you hide some paris green.
Then tie that catcher, Pee Wee Schalk, upon the back of some wild hawk.
Get Risbert in an autor wreck, in which said auto breaks his neck.
For Faber, just invent some trick to make him eat some arsenic.
Put Cicotte on a fast train which speeds onward through an open switch.
Place Shano in an airship bound to dash his daylights to the ground.
Pierce Mister Joe’s heart with a knife, and jail Reb Russell for his life.
Take Pitcher Danforth, long and slim, and push a building onto him.
McMullin and the other men–cast them into a lion’s den.
And last of all, but hardly least, feed Gleason to some wildish beast.
This scheme,” the White Sox rooter said, “will lend some other team ahead.”
George Moriarty (1884-1964) played third base for 10 years, mostly with Detroit, and later worked as manager, newspaper columnist, poet and, for 22 years, as a major league umpire.
Away on this side of the ocean
When the chestnuts are hinting of green
And the first of the café commandos
Are moving outside for a fine
And the sound of spring beats a bolero
As Paree sheds her coat and her hat
The sound that is missed more than any
Is the sound of the crack of a bat.
There’s an animal kind of a feeling
There’s a stirring down at Vincennes Zoo
And the kid down the hall’s getting restless
Taking stairs like a young kangaroo
Now the dandy is walking his poodle
And the concierge sunning her cat
But the heart’s with the Cubs and the Tigers
And the sound of the crack of a bat.
In the park on the corner run schoolboys
With a couple of cartons for props
Kicking goals à la Fontaine or Kopa
While a little guy chickies for cops
“Goal for us,” “No it’s not,” “You’re a liar,”
Then the classical shrieks of a spat
But it’s not like a rhubarb at home plate
Or the sound of the crack of a bat.
Here the stadia thrill to the scrumdowns
And the soccer fans flock to the games
And the chic punt the nags out at Longchamp
Where the women are dames and not dames
But it’s different at Forbes and at Griffith
The homes of the Buc and the Nat
Where the hotdog and peanut share laurels
With the sound of the crack of a bat.
No, a Yank can’t describe to a Frenchman
The rasp of an umpire’s call
The continuing charms of statistics
Changing hist’ry with each strike and ball
Nor the self-conscious jog of the slugger
Rounding third with the tip of his hat
Nor the half-smothered grace of a hook slide
Nor the sound of the crack of a bat.
Now the golfer is buffing his niblick
And the tennis buff’s tightening his strings
And the fisherman’s flexing his flyrod
Like a thousand and one other springs
Oh, the sports on both sides of the ocean
Have a great deal in common, at that
But the thing that’s not here
At this time of the year
Is the sound of the crack of a bat.
Journalist Dick Roraback was based in Paris as the sports editor of the International Herald Tribune from 1957 to 1972. That publication reprints this poem every year around Opening Day. Thanks to Terry Cannon of the Baseball Reliquary for sending it to us.