Reviving the Art of Baseball Doggerel
Right by the lake,
The home of mistakes,
Wrigley Field, where fans make a din.
100 years old,
Stories untold,
Waiting for a World Series win.
Tickle this town!
Just one crown
Would make the old and young ones grin.
Will it be so?
Will we ever know
The joy of a winner
That feels just like sin?
It was fall, 1945. The nightmare,
World War II, had ended. Now
The world, relieved of pain, exulted
And kissed in Times Square.
But amid relief and ticker-tape,
In Chicago no one knew
That this was just the beginning
Of the Cubbies’ enduring drought.
These words aren’t meant to drag up
A goat’s curse or muddy recollections
Of the “World’s Worst Series”
(Between the Tigers and the Cubs).
No. It’s 2014, and Memorial Day reminds:
Memories and lives are fading.
The ranks of the best generation
Are getting thinner each and every day.
Closer to home, in dugout memory
Of Wrigley Field, only one link remains:
Lennie Merullo, 97, is the only tie
To the Cubs’ last World Series, of 1945.
Maybe the ’45 Series,
To quote author Warren Brown,
Was truly the “worst” that ever was.
But then, many players were in service
And what is necessary is to recall
That a generation did play ball,
And then went to war
And gave themselves for us all.
Even Cubbie achievements
Can cause Cubbie blues.
They scored 17 runs–
Did they win or lose?
How bad were the White Sox?
Three games worse than the Cubs.
The Cubs,
Who played like shubdubs,
Like scrubs,
Like Triple-A subs,
Who made each day a gallery of flubs,
Those ridiculous bubs,
Who gave their fans the nubs,
Who drove those fans to local pubs,
To drown their sorrows in bad beer from huge tubs
And eat greasy deep-fried grub
That hardens their arteries like cigarette stubs
And makes them all fat.
The Sox were worse than that.
I once had a team,
Or should I say,
It once had me.
And though they played bad,
Their park appealed–
Wrig-uh-ly Field.
I sat through Jim Kremmel, Chuck Rainey, and Wayne Nordhagen–
Mike Vail and Karl Pagel were touted as saviors back then.
Sat terrace reserved,
Bleachers and box,
Never threw rocks.
And when they played well,
I cheered loud,
Part of the crowd.
But 2003 was so bitter that I had to leave,
And since then they’ve given no reasons that I ought to grieve.
I still love the game,
If somebody plays, I
Watch every day.
But root for the Cubs?
That’s in the can.
No longer a fan.