The 1982 (2012) Yankees: The Poem

by Hart Seely

Steve Balboni at the plate,
Dave Collins really swings the bat.
Juan Espino? He’ll be great!
Roy Smalley fields just like a cat!

This Yankee team, remember when?
Those future talents, to be found.
It’s nineteen-eighty-two again!
And Dave LaRouche is on the mound.

Here’s Tommy John, age thirty-nine.
And Lee Mazzilli, batting first,
Is there, by chance, a stronger wine?
I’ve grown a Bobby Meacham thirst.

Curt Kaufman’s warming in the pen,
Another save shall not be blown.
It’s nineteen-eighty-two again,
Now batting, catcher Rick Cerone.

It’s only May; we’ll start anew,
We really can’t be in such shambles.
We’ve Jeter, ARod, Swisher, too.
Not Hobsons, Dents and Oscar Gambles.

Alas, I feel intense new fears.
It’s twenty-twelve… or am I wrong?
If eighty-two, I need some beers,
The next Depression’s twelve years long.

Please provide some hope to kids like Hart Seely, and purchase his new book, The Juju Rules: Or How to Win Baseball Games from Your Couch.

Maybe I Am The Phantom of Baseball

The Found Poetry in the Tweets of Jose Canseco

by Patrick Dubuque

Maybe I am the phantom of baseball

I will do anything for one more at bat
I know I can still hit MLB pitching
I can still hit a golf ball 380 yards
I have the hips of a 20 year old
I can
I have

I have a medical condition:
I love the game so much
Even in exhibition

Invite me for an old timers game
I will play

Anything for a look

Still dreaming of that one last
Trip of imagination
Back to the big leagues

I miss everything where did it go

Patrick Dubuque blogs regularly for Pitchers & Poets, where this first appeared.

The Roger Clemens Trial, So Far

by Stephen Jones

5 weeks & 3 dismissed jurors later

(jurors having fallen asleep
during counsel’s endless
seemingly pointless examination
& then by law let go)

this trial has exceeded boredom
is now treading in dysfunctional limbo
& has left a bitter taste:

day-by-day less truth is being
observed/served & one could wish
somebody would call off the whole
thing on account “of legal rain”

 

Roger Clemens

by Stephen Jones

Permissible or not
There seems to be a drought
Of honesty afoot

Pitching maybe-perjury
Clemens seems for once
To be outta his league

His domineering stance
On the mound not found
Now drugs/performance

An arguance
More finger pointing it seems
As ugly truths are exhumed

A Pair of Odes to Chris Davis

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Taking Higher Ground

by Michael X. Ferraro

Chris Davis’s 0-fer-8 night ended in bliss.
Five times did the DH swing-swing-swing and miss.
So, post-platinum sombrero, why the big grin?
‘Cause he tossed two scoreless and picked up the win.

………………………………………………………………………………..

The Ballad of Chris Davis

by Stu Shea

How does a player go 0-for-8
And still win himself the game ball?
Move from DH to the pitching mound
And make major-league hitters look small.