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.
