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The Final Frames are Finished

by James Finn Garner

The season’s done, the nights grow cold,
The best and worst of us grow old,
The Dodgers exult, the White Sox are hiring,
So let’s salute those players retiring.

Kyle Hendricks, beloved Cub
Now joins Denny’s Breakfast Club.

Joey Votto will still spread joy
Like a precocious, Pepsi-fueled boy.

Andrew McCutchen, with graceful ease,
Can now sleep in whenever he please.

In ’16 Jason Heyward got his ring,
Now he can orate on any old thing.

And old Rich Hill now takes the pill
Solely for his aches and ills.

Thank you, men, for the sounds and sights
That helped us pass our summer nights.
When the Hot Stove League convenes with friends,
We can say we saw you when.

 

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All-Star Clerihews #2: Clerihew Requiem

Rafael Devers
Will never say never
But he’s pretty sure
He wouldn’t go on a gastronomic foraging tour.

Paul Skenes
Mentors awkward teens.
Growing up in California
He too had acne and body dysphoria.

Elly de la Cruz
Has over 400 pairs of shoes
And 75 square meters
Of Odor Eaters.

Alec Bohm.
Wherever he lays his hat is his home.
But wherever he is across the nation,
He digs The Temptations.

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Did They Tell Me How to Pitch to Ted Williams?

by Bobby Shantz

Did they tell me how to pitch to Ted Williams?
Sure they did.
It was great advice,
very encouraging.

They said he had no weakness,
won’t swing at a bad ball,
has the best eyes in the business,
and can kill you with one swing.

He won’t hit anything bad,
but don’t give him anything good.

 

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Eddie Collins

by Michael Ceraolo

I was one of the Clean Sox,
but that doesn’t mean I was perfect:
at the start of my career
I played professionally under an assumed name
in order to try to keep my college eligibility,
and I was a contributor to the pot gotten up
to reward Detroit for beating Boston in ’17,
something that the Dirty Sox later
tried to make out as part of a fix
Such rewarding was common at the time,
though I can see now how it could be misconstrued
I should have taken the job as Yankees manager
when it was offered to me;
I thought I was going to succeed Mr. Mack
when he retired, and that retirement would be in a few years
When that few years passed without his retiring,
I took the job with Mr. Yawkey,
and what I did and didn’t do in that job
has justifiably dimmed my reputation,
something that I now see in retrospect