Reviving the Art of Baseball Doggerel
by David Bellel
All my balls are packed I’m ready to go
I’m standin’ here outside the clubhouse door
I hate to wake you up to say goodbye
But my ERA is breakin’ far above what’s norm
The fans are hating’, they’ve caused a storm
Already I’m so lonesome I could die
So forgive me and pity me
Why oh why did you trade for me?
Forget me and this time really let me go…
‘Cause I’m leavin’ on a jet plane
I hope I won’t be back again
Oh babe, I can’t wait to go
by David Bellel
Curtis Granderson joins the chorus:
I used to whiff a slew
Whenever lefties threw
Yank hearts were not carefree and gay
How could I know I’d find you
Somewhere along k-long’s way
The pitchers I used to know
Would always smile “Hello”
No sure out like my out, they’d say
Then love re-gripped my fingers
Somewhere along k-long’s way
I should forget
But with the nightmares of hit-less nights I see scary things
You’re gone and yet
There’s still a feeling deep inside
That you will always be part of me
So now I look for you
Along Grand Concourse Avenue
And If I stumble, I pray
That I’ll never lose you
Somewhere along k-long’s way
The outlook wasn’t brilliant for the Yankee nine that night:
The score stood two to one, and with no rallies left in sight.
When Colin Curtis lined to first, out-foxed by pitcher Shields,
A sickly silence vexed the Bomber fans o’er Tampa’s fields.
The New York bats had wilted in a deep despair. The race
Had found them in a losing funk, a-mired in second place.
They thought, if only Jeter could unto the plate bestride,
They’d put up even money he could take one in the side.
Then from 5,000 Tampa throats there rose a lusty foam;
It rumbled ‘cross the plastic turf, it nearly popped the dome;
It rocked the mighty harbor ships returning from the sea,
With their bows a-colored rusty with dispersant from BP.
There was ease in Jeter’s manner as he stepped into his place;
There was pride in Jeter’s bearing and a smile on Jeter’s face.
And when, responding to the cheers, he lightly made a scene,
No stranger in the crowd could doubt he hoped to work a bean.
Ten thousand eyes were on him, as the scoreboard bellowed loud;
Five thousand tongues applauded; (down in Tampa, that’s a crowd.)
Then while the writhing pitcher ground the ball into his hip,
It seemed the Yankee captain might just take one in the lip.
And then the leather-covered sphere came hurtling through the air,
And Jeter stood a-watching it in haughty grandeur there.
Close by the sturdy batsman the ball unheeded sped-
“IT HIT ME, OWWWW!” cried Jeter. “TAKE FIRST!” the umpire said.
Now from the former Devil Rays, there rose a mighty roar,
Like the warble from John Sterling aft a walk-off Yankee score.
“Kill him! Kill the umpire!” boomed Joe Maddon from his stand;
And the umpire said, “Yer out a’ here!” while Jeter rubbed his hand.
With a smile of Christian charity great Jeter’s visage shone;
He jogged to first a-smiling; he bade the game go on;
He rubbed his wrist and watched the scoreboard replay through his hat
Which proved the ball had merely struck the handle of his bat.
Oh, somewhere in this fevered land the sun is shining bright;
The band is playing somewhere, and somewhere hearts are light,
And somewhere men are laughing, and somewhere kids still dream;
But they’re still pissed off in Tampa: Jeter faked one for the team.
Hart Seely is the major domo of the Yankees blog, It is High, It is Far, It is….Caught.
– Boston, MA, 1948
The Chilean secret police
searched everywhere
for the poet Neruda: in the dark shafts
of mines, in the boxcars of railroad yards,
in the sewers of Santiago.
The government intended to confiscate his mouth
and extract the poems one by one like bad teeth.
But the mines and boxcars and sewers were empty.
I know where he was. Neruda was at Fenway Park,
burly and bearded in a flat black cap, hidden
in the kaleidoscope of the bleachers.
He sat quietly, chomping a hot dog
when Ted Williams walked to the crest of the diamond,
slender as my father remembers him,
squinting at the pitcher, bat swaying in a memory of trees.
The stroke was a pendulum of long muscle and wood,
Ted’s face tilted up, the home run
zooming into the right field grandstand.
Then the crowd stood together, cheering
for this blasphemer of newsprint, the heretic
who would not tip his cap as he toed home plate
or grin like a war hero at the sportswriters
surrounding his locker for a quote.
The fugitive poet could not keep silent,
standing on his seat to declaim the ode
erupted in crowd-bewildering Spanish from his mouth:
Praise Ted Williams, raising his sword
cut from the ash tree, the ball
a white planet glowing in the atmosphere
of the right field grandstand!
Praise the Wall rising
like a great green wave
from the green sea of the outfield!
Praise the hot dog, pink meat,
pork snouts, sawdust, mouse feces,
human hair, plugging our intestines,
yet baptized joyfully with mustard!
Praise the wobbling drunk, seasick beer
in hand, staring at the number on his ticket,
demanding my seat!
Everyone gawked at the man standing
on his seat, bellowing poetry in Spanish.
Anonymous no longer,
Neruda saw the Chilean secret police
as they scrambled through the bleachers,
pointing and shouting, so the poet
jumped a guardrail to disappear
through a Fenway tunnel,
the black cap flying from his head
and spinning into center field.
This is true. I was there at Fenway
on August 7, 1948, even if I was born
exactly nine years later
when my father
almost named me Theodore.
Martin Espada teaches at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. He has published 17 books as a poet, editor, essayist and translator. You can read more about his work at his website.
An ode to shuttered baseball parks. For info on Johnny Rosenblatt Stadium, please check the comments thread below.
And here’s to you, Boston’s Fenway Park,
Jesus loves you more than you will know — wo, wo, wo.
God bless you please, windy Wrigley Field,
Heaven holds a place for those who pray.
Hey, you’re all that remain.
We’d like to know a little bit about old stadia,
We’d like to help you keep some memories.
Look around you, all you see are old angelic eyes.
Strolling hallowed grounds of New York’s Polo Grounds.
And here’s to you, Jackie Robinson,
Ebbets Field saw fans who open grew — woo, woo, woo.
God bless you please, Jackie Robinson,
Brooklyn holds a place for those who played
Hey, hey, hey … hey, hey, hey.
Now so many places live where no one ever goes:
Shea, the Vet, Three Rivers and Candlestick.
It’s no shock Olympic Stadium’s no longer used.
Bigger surprise the House Ruth Built is gone now.
Coo, coo, ca-choo, all old stadia
We remember more than you will know — wo, wo, wo.
God bless you please, Houston Astrodome,
We remember Bad News Bears’ clutch play
Hey, hey, hey … hey, hey, hey.
Sitting in the bleachers on a Sunday afternoon,
Going to a big late-season day game.
Laugh about it, shout about it
When you’ve got to choose
Ev’ry way you look at it, you lose.
Where have you gone N. C. Double A
A nation turns its hungry eyes to you — woo, woo, woo.
What’s that you say, President Myles Brand?
Rosenblatt has left and gone away!
Hey, hey, hey … hey, hey, hey.
Posted 9/7/10