Reviving the Art of Baseball Doggerel
At eighteen he committed himself
to baseball . . . for fifty years.
Detroit should be grateful.
He didn’t fail stadium fans —
their team’s porous bats did
like unidentified blips
on baseball’s radar screen.
Mr. Leyland deserved better.
Jim Leyland
Is beloved from Grosse Ile to Ignace to Zeeland.
All across the mitten
Tiger fans are still smitten.
In Boston they shave with a cleaver
Being tossed on a wave of beard fever
But poor Motown is shattered
By big blows they were battered
All is lost with no saving reliever.
With Halloween approaching, you need to check out all the limericks at Hilary’s blog, LimerWrecks.
Bumper to bumper on the way home,
October baseball on the AM waves.
The guys in the booth are nattering
and then one allows, “Hee-ere’s the pitch.”
In the pregnant pause, a log is split
on my radio, a violent snap
of sound, like the dude from Green Day
just pulverized his snare. Or maybe
one of those “Where The Wild Things” saw red
and razed a roof. Either way, that pure
noise story-tells better than Scully.
Detroit’s sigh is broadcast nation-wide.
We are no longer wedged in traffic,
because bat met ball met microphone
and Marconi trots with Napoli.
Oh, wear ye beards and Sox of red
And caps with B’s upon your head,
And swing ye bats with balls below
And on the bases never go.
The stripe-ed Tigers are in town
Pitchin’, itchin’ for the crown.
And yonder looms another game
And to the winner goes the fame!
This was received on Sunday afternoon, before Game 2 between the erstwhile Beaneaters and Wolverines. We post it now to remind us all of the evanescent nature of success in the great game, indeed, of life itself.