Reviving the Art of Baseball Doggerel
By Stuart Shea
Out of nowhere came The Riot
To beef up the Cubbie diet
Adding speed and walks to a slow, old, hacking club.
Maybe he’s no budding star,
But he’s done quite well so far,
And the fans enjoy his spirit as a Cub.
In the talk of Harden, Soto,
And Kosuke Fukudomo,
No one speaks of Theriot as MVP.
But without his OBP,
Where would the offense be?
There’d be no RBIs for Big D. Lee.
Uh, or A-Ram.
Posted 9/24/08
By Stuart Shea
You can’t cut the lawn
Like Carlos Z. pitches.
You’d lose hold of the mower
And get 80 stitches.
You can’t do your taxes
Like Carlos Z. throws.
You’d ball up receipts
And punch your own nose.
You can’t do brain surg’ry
Like Carlos Z. hurls.
Your patients would die
While you did angry twirls.
But there’s nothing like watching the dervish in blue
When he harnesses everything that he can do.
Just ask HOU.
Posted 9/17/08
by Sheila Bernstein
“Peanuts, popcorn, cold beer,”
Shouts the voice of the vendor.
Of course, we’re at the ballpark
In all of its splendor.
It’s the crack of the bat,
The spit of the pitcher — well, sure, you get the picture.
Root for the home team.
It’s a shame if they lose.
What the heck, I’m tanked up on booze!
Baseball…there’s nothing to match.
Where am I now?
Wrigley Field, natch!
Posted 9/15/08
By James Finn Garner
As ten decades of failure concluded
(The odds against which—mighty steep!),
The Three Fates sat in the Wrigley bleachers,
One last great appointment to keep.
There Clotho with distant expression
Spun thread from her distaff with ease,
The flaxen content of life in her hands,
Her scorecard spread over her knees.
Her sister Lachesis sat by her
To measure each thread to its length,
Her face a smear of SPF 50
As the sun beat down in its strength.
Lastly, Atropos, peddler of doom,
Whose shears sever man’s vital thread,
Was letting the line pile up at her feet
And glassily staring ahead.
What could cause the Fates’ dereliction,
Prolonging the Cubs’ misery?
What forces conspire to cruelly delay
The end of this sad century?
Beside the gals sat die-hard Bacchus,
With grapes twined in his Cubs visor.
“You can’t leave now—we can still score some runs!
Hey Beer Man—bring four more Budweisers!”
Posted 9/12/08
by Sid Yiddish
If you please, I’d like some goat cheese, to dispel the myth, from spring to fall
I’d like nothing better than to watch the Cubs capture it all, but one can’t be too sure,
For the milk has to be pure and not tainted with so much
Bad culture,
And bad culture is 100 years of rotten ills,
Makes the old men drink hard liquor and swallow pills to forget about all that bitterness in between.
Ha!
Like 2008 is going to set anyone straight!
It’s just another great debate and besides, it’s now mid-summer and the slide has slowly begun,
Which, when all is said and done, will lead them nowhere but to empty banter on Opening Day, 2009.
Posted 9/4/08