Do the Ichiro!

Do the Ichiro, do the Ichiro!
In his first post-season in Yankee clothes!
Do the Ichiro, do the Ichiro!
He’ll do anything to beat the O’s!

First run around third fast and wide
(Do the Ichiro, do the Ichiro)
Then hunker down like you’re gonna slide
(Do the Ichiro, do the Ichiro)

Then spin out to avoid the tag
(Do the Ichiro, do the Ichiro)
Scoot ’round the plate like a hopped-up crab
(Do the Ichiro, do the Ichiro)

Matt Weiters, you got no chance, mister
(Do the Ichiro, do the Ichiro)
The Ichiro’s part baseball, part Twister!
(Do the Ichiro, do the Ichiro)

Do the Ichiro, do the Ichiro!
Won’t be left on base by his punchless bros!
Do the Ichiro, do the Ichiro!
The Yankees need a ninja or home they go!

McNally, Cuellar, Dobson and Palmer

by James Finn Garner

Yesterday in 1971, Jim Palmer shut out the Indians 5-0, becoming the fourth member of the ’71 Orioles’ pitching staff — after Dave McNally, Mike Cuellar and Pat Dobson — to win 20 or more games. The only previous staff to boast four 20-game winners was the 1920 Chicago White Sox.

Cuellar, McNally, Palmer and Dobson:
These are the men who’ll finish the job, son

To keep hitters down or stifle a rally,
Call Palmer, Dobson, Cuellar, McNally.

Batters looking so dead, they might need an embalmer
McNally, Cuellar, Dobson and Palmer.

If any could beat them, don’t know who they are,
Dobson, McNally, Palmer and Cuellar.

H/t to Big Hair and Plastic Grass: A Funky Ride Through Baseball and America in the Swinging 70s.

Late Season Funk in the AL East

by Stephen Jones

Everybody’s on the skids
Yankees, maybe Baltimore too
Throw in hot Tampa as well
And one wonders about Toronto

“Skidding” being short rides
in September – and who
comes out on top, well
a skid is a slide through
September, anybody’s guess

Players missed when it counts
wild pitches now a measure,
late-season swoons and rallies
and who plays in October

Order in the Bleachers

by James Finn Garner

Three cheers for Justice Sotomayor!
The “wise Latina” knows what summer break’s for.

She’s not with Dick Cheney, slaughtering birds,
Or at a think-tank retreat with blue-suited nerds.

Sonia got the hell out of Washington quickly
Went up to the Bronx and, not being picky,

Bought a ticket and dog, and hunkered down grinning
In the right field bleachers with a guy named “Bald Vinnie”

She cheered while her Bombers flattened the O’s,
Heckled Zach Britton and lauded Cano.

While it’s doubtful this impacts much of her work,
I think she should hire Bald Vinnie as clerk.

Idle Comment

by Stephen Jones

There’s no reason to argue
or to spew

The American League East
is the best

competitively
realistically

Boston?  New York?  Tampa?
Baltimore too?

(And Toronto in the mix as well?)

But to shift gears
and memory/years:

Despite all the hiccups
the HGHs and PEDs

baseball the purity of it
continues to confound/explain

why a summer day or in rain
ball-to-bat glove-and-ball

fascinates us all

Stephen Jones is a contract writer/editor with a firm in New York City.