A’s to Las Vegas!

Old bay city with a baseball team
Once the home of Moneyball
Playing in what looks like an airplane hangar
Or Appalachian shopping mall

But the owner doesn’t think he’s milking enough
Fields a team full of losers and scrubs
And dares the local fans if they’ve had enough

A’s to Las Vegas! A’s to Las Vegas!

Old city sort of offered a deal
But Vegas had a lot more flash
Fisher didn’t get as rich as he is
By expending his own cash

East Bay lore disappears in smoke
Swingin’ A’s, Bash Brothers tossed in a poke
Nevada taxpayers, get ready to choke…

A’s to Las Vegas! A’s to Las Vegas!

Sin City got them legal hookers,
All-day casinos and sports book bookers,
Booze, coke, poppers and meth,
Donny Osmond, Penn & Teller,
And machine gun rental…
Sitting at a ballgame?
They might as well check if you’re dead!

So money talks and bullshit walks
An old credo, tried and true,
Leverage turns soon into blackmail
While the regular guys get screwed

Get ready for baseball the Vegas way
The rock-hard infield is ready to play
And more empty seating than Tampa Bay

A’s to Las Vegas! A’s to Las Vegas!
A’s to … A’s to …
Las Vegas!

Property Protection

by Randy Johnson

I don’t own a gun
but I keep a bag of baseballs
near our bed.
If someone breaks in
they better be wearing a
batting helmet
because
I’m going to be throwing
at their head.

This Year’s Departures

by James Finn Garner

The season is done, the jocks are stored
Only two teams are left on the board
Let’s pause now, while for Friday we wait,
And salute the retirements of a few greats.

Pujols hit his 700th for the Cards
And now will have time to work on his yard.

Bosox and Cubs champ Jon Lester
Now is an official hammock tester.

Music lover Kurt Suzuki
Can learn the banjo or bouzouki

After the majors, Ádrian González played on
But after this year, A-Gon done gone.

Melky Cabrera, the man and the myth,
Will star in community theater: “The Melkman Cometh.”

And if anyone’s  looking for J.A. Happ,
He’s out on the patio, taking a nap.

 

Ralph Terry

by Michael Ceraolo

Going from the Yankees to Kansas City officially
was a trade between two big-league teams,
but everyone knew it was more like
being farmed out, with return certain
if the player developed sufficiently,
which is what happened in my case
After my return I experienced
the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat
before that became a sports catchphrase,
both times in a Game Seven:
giving up the walk-off to Mazeroski,
two years later shutting out the Giants, one-nothing
Later, in retirement,
I qualified for the pro golf tour
I think I’m still to this day
the only former major leaguer to do so