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Let’s Watch Two!

by Todd Herges

Bright dawn blue sky
Cubbies play at 1:05.

Dad, Mom, sons, daughter
Head like lambs unto the slaughter..

Ride aboard the red line El,
Hope that Z will throw it well.

See the green, the grass, the board,
Hope Dad’s cash he will not hoard.

See the wall, the bricks, the ivy,
Hope that Z K’s Junior Spivey.

Smell the stale beer, puke, and links
D Lee’s sitting – Dad’s heart sinks.

But then Aramis hits a double,
Spoils the no-no, causes trouble.

Up in the booth a new guest sings
But not like Harry’s echoed rings.

One son for extra innings thanks
This day was one for Ernie Banks.

As Holly wraps it up so well,
The family knows the day’s been swell.

Then back aboard the loud red train
To the hotel – it looks like rain.

Glad it held off for these few hours,
Maybe thanks to higher powers,

Hack and Harry and Chance and Brown
Stand in the clouds and look straight down

Into the green grass lined by Waveland,
Sheffield, Addison – Chicago’s Graceland.

They held back rain, they hold back tears,
Been over a goddamn hundred years.

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Posted 5/28/2009

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Cub Haikus

by Jay Raemont

Cubs in the Playoffs?
Maybe if the sun don’t shine
On poisoned ivy.

What is it they say?
Pride goeth before the Fall.
And so too, the Cubs.

Will this be the YEAR?!?
Many millions only hope–
Please do it for Ron!

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Posted 5/27/2009

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From an Old Goat’s Notebook

by Sid Yiddish

“Baaah-ter up,” it bawls.
The old goat rises from its pen.
It’s got work to do before the clock strikes half past 10.

Time to prepare itself, for the annual sacrificial legend.
Just before the onslaught of the newly christened season of ballplayers checking themselves out and each other and the fans and the sports media doing the constant scrutinizing and studying to see if they match up just right.

“For my job, I admit it’s harder, and I get told often that I should quit while I’m ahead, but no, not quite yet.
Those Cubs will never win
As long as I’m alive!

“So here’s a toast to the Cubs,
To Chicago’s finest boys in blue,
(Not the cops, mind you).
May you go through another 162 games loveless and hopeless, till you slip away like so many fantasies of years gone by.
Ah yes!
Don’t cry, sweet Chicago, don’t cry!”

For more on Sid Yiddish’s poetry, music and performances, check out his My Space page.

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Posted 5/21/09

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Instant Replay Creates Perfect World

By James Finn Garner

.

Now that cameras can detect and correct
Our errors and human frailty,
I call for a replay of

Fidrych talking to the ball,
Reggie hitting in October,
Bob Gibson staring,
Koufax stretching,
Veeck laughing,

DiMaggio’s war years,
And Hank Greenberg’s,

And 1994, which could have saved the Expos,
And spared us the Nationals,

And Cap Anson shutting his damned mouth
And Buck O’Neil playing for the Cubs,
Satchel Paige for the A’s,
And Cool Papa Bell for the Cardinals.

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Posted 5/14/09

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Sitting in Box Seats During Later Innings

By Tom Dyja

with apologies to Robert Frost

Whose seats these are, I think I know.
He lives in Elk Grove Village, though.
He will not see us sitting here
To watch Samardzija rear and throw.

My little son must think it queer
That I’m not tossing back a beer.
But since crap wage is all I make,
Eight bucks for Bud felt sort of dear.

The usher comes, gives me a shake
Because he knows there’s some mistake.
My kid’s just six. Who cares? The creep
Makes sure he knows that I’m a fake.

The ivy shudders, dark and deep.
But all I want to do is weep.
The seats I bought were way too cheap.
The seats I bought were way too cheap.

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Tom Dyja is the author most recently of Walter White: The Dilemma of Black Identity in America, as well as the novels The Moon in Our Hands, Meet John Trow, and the Civil War baseball novel Play for a Kingdom.

Posted 5/4/09.