by The Fans
For Jim Price (1941-2023)
by Stuart Shea
Curve—yellow hammer—breaks down hard
Can the pitcher keep it in the yard?
Was it tougher to catch a pitch
From Mickey Lolich
Or to scaffold Ernie Harwell’s last act?
Now a voice of memory is stilled,
But promises were fulfilled.
He won a ring. He did his thing.
Known from Marquette to Flint,
His life’s work a flash, a glint,
A wind wafting through dozens of summers.
Stu Shea, the co-founder of Bardball, is the author of numerous books, including Calling the Game: Baseball Broadcasting from 1920 to the Present.
A Ballad of Baseball Burdens
by Franklin Pierce Adams
The burden of hard hitting. Slug away
.  Like Honus Wagner or like Tyrus Cobb.
Else fandom shouteth: “Who said you could play?
.  Back to the jasper league, you minor slob!”
.  Swat, hit, connect, line out, get on the job.
Else you shall feel the brunt of fandom’s ire
.  Biff, bang it, clout it, hit it on the knob –
This is the end of every fan’s desire.
The burden of good pitching. Curved or straight.
.  Or in or out, or haply up or down,
To puzzle him that standeth by the plate,
.  To lessen, so to speak, his bat-renown:
.  Like Christy Mathewson or Miner Brown,
So pitch that every man can but admire
.  And offer you the freedom of the town –
This is the end of every fan’s desire.
The burden of loud cheering. O the sounds!
.  The tumult and the shouting from the throats
Of forty thousand at the Polo Grounds
.  Sitting, ay, standing sans their hats and coats.
.  A mighty cheer that possibly denotes
That Cub or Pirate fat is in the fire;
.  Or, as H. James would say, We’ve got their goats –
This is the end of every fan’s desire.
The burden of a pennant. O the hope,
.  The tenuous hope, the hope that’s half a fear,
The lengthy season and the boundless dope,
.  And the bromidic, “Wait until next year.”
.  O dread disgrace of trailing in the rear,
O Piece of Bunting, flying high and higher
.  That next October it shall flutter here:
This is the end of every fan’s desire.
ENVOY
Ah, Fans, let not the Quarry but the Chase
.  Be that to which most fondly we aspire!
For us not Stake, but Game; not Goal, but Race –
.  THIS is the end of every fan’s desire.
How’s It Feel, Akil?
by James Finn Garner
Tigers outfielder Akil Baddoo
Tried to stretch one base into two
Was hit near the base
In his own carapace
A two-bagger, one-sacker miscue.
The Tigers (for William Blake and Willie Hernández)
by Ron Riekki
Tiger, Tiger, burning bright, (due to all the stadium lights)
In the forests of the night; (as that’s what turf grass looks like)
What immortal hand or eye, (like Kaline, Al, and Cobb, Ty)
Could frame they fearful symmetry? (but Fleer and Topps will always try)
In the distant deeps and skies of Palmer,
I’d play baseball to keep me calmer
and it was the same with my father,
he was fatherless, except on the diamond,
where coaches turned us into pitchers and linemen
and point guards and goalies in a town of mining,
where we’d forget about hematite and iron ore
in the bliss of 1945 and 1984,
and 1935 and 1968,
the years where all we did was celebrate,
like both the sky and our insides were bright as uranium
and in 2022, as a vet, they honored me at the stadium
and Detroit Tigers, you are always burning bright
in the forests of the night
and I held my hand to my heart that night
where I got to feel what being honored is like.
Thank you, Detroit Tigers.
Thank you.
Ron Riekki’s books include Blood/Not Blood Then the Gates (Middle West Press), My Ancestors are Reindeer Herders and I Am Melting in Extinction (Apprentice House Press), Posttraumatic (Hoot ‘n’ Waddle), and U.P. (Ghost Road Press). Right now, Riekki’s listening to Mychael Danna’s “It’s a Process” from the Moneyball film score.