Reviving the Art of Baseball Doggerel
These are the saddest of possible words:
Soriano nails the runner at the plate.
His arm is so strong many coaches guessed wrong.
Soriano nails the runner at the plate.
So beware, the fleet footed, and heed the stop sign.
Soriano nails the runner at the plate.
Advance if you must but beware of the dust.
Soriano nails the runner at the plate.
Posted 8/30/07
I’m sitting on a fire hydrant half way between my forty-fifth and forty-sixth season
enhancing my tan while I wait for my pals to arrive with the tickets.
Peanuts!
And a street vendor, leaning against a blond brick wall fifty feet beyond the centerfield
fence, cries
Peanuts!
Sounding somewhat like a cricket because the squall he makes is louder than his body
should allow.
Peanuts!
Three cops sitting sidesaddle on a blue horse, side arms bulging out conspicuously,
adjust their doughnut bellies as they chit chat takin’ it easy on their fair weather
patrol.
Peanuts!
Ten Wichita Kansas corn fed bullheads plug up the intersection hunting for Gate F.
The cop nearest the traffic jam reluctantly does his duty with a groaning eyeball
roll.
“Down there, sir. Gate F is down there
Where the big F is.”
Peanuts!
People plash by in streams of placid pastels. Pops and his buzz head kids.
Wendy and hers. Bertha and what could be children, but what may be baby
hippopotami tuggin’ at their mama as they lumber across the street
linked together hand to hand — the last one dragging an antique catcher’s mitt.
Peanuts!
From the top of the plug I shoot my scanner out into the loveliness of lots and lots of ladies, dolls, dames. Over forty me can’t help being a pig sometimes, especially at the ballpark. Hell, when I’m out here I’m like a WGN cameramen zoomin’ in on
Peanuts!
Some bad habits are hard to kick.
Anyway, I spot peroxide blond wearing a pink halter-top, eating a Polish sausage at the beer stand across the street, making lipstick autographs on the bun. Peanuts! I fantasize that she’s signing it for me.
Peanuts!
“Got tickets?”
Something tries to invade my daydream.
Peanuts!
“Got tickets?”
It starts to dissolve.
Peanuts!
“I said, d’ya got tickets?”
Is this my friend?
Peanuts!
“Hey! I’m talkin’ to you!”
Not my friend.
“All you got to say is yes or no.
You people.
You people and your looks.”
It’s a hawk, a hustler, a young man scalping a fist of fake tickets. He’s tough, muscular, feral.
Red Dog dago-tee. His eyes peg me reactively. I feel my own opaque glare matching up to his. For a second we stare coldly into each other’s eyes.
“All I asked you was if you had tickets.
And if you do, just say no thank you.
Save me the hard guy look.”
Peanuts!
“You people.
When are you people
Ever gonna stop
Lookin’ down at us?”
Peanuts!
“You don’t own this street.”
Peanuts!
“And you don’t own me.”
Peanuts!
“And if you don’t have the guts
To say what you’re thinkin’,
Then don’t parade around
As if you got the guts to do anything else.”
Peanuts!
“You people.”
Down the block and across the street Big Mama leans over the porch rail and hollers “Ramon!” “Ramon!” who runs up to the cricket on the corner holdin’ out a handful of money cryin’:
“Peanuts! Peanuts!
I want some peanuts!”
You got ’em little buddy. They’re all yours. Take ’em home.
Take ‘em home and enjoy yourself. Enjoy eating your
PEANUTS!
Goose Gossage,
Goose Gossage,
You are your own Bossage,
You have your own mitt that you sign and Embossage.
Goose Gossage,
Goose Gossage,
You always will Flossage,
Your round rolling stone will ne’er gather no Mossage.
Goose Gossage,
Goose Gossage,
You boot up with DOSsage,
You always predict the results of coin Tossage.
Goose Gossage,
Goose Gossage,
Your car drives with Nossage,
And you play like you dance, like the winged Bob Fossage.
(Sandy’s site, with his comedy teammates: Schadenfreude.net)
Posted 8/3/07
by Tim McClure
100 will soon be here,
‘08 to ‘08 we do fear,
A ‘45 goat or ‘69 cat,
Durham’s glove or a fan’s catch,
Bone the curse, don’t wait for next year!
Some say with a goat we were cursed,
Some say it’s an error at first,
Black cats with the Mets,
Or Bartman’s bad catch–
I fear the Cubs are the worst.
The series I wish they could win,
For naught now it seems like a sin,
They’ve tried for so long,
It’s the same old song,
Who’ll ever see it, my kin?
They’ve won! I can’t believe it!
In the ninth with a home run hit!
We’ve waited so long,
The field is a throng,
I just woke up… Oh S**t!
The Red Sox did it four years ago,
The White Sox were next in line to glow,
We thought we were next,
Our muscles were flexed,
But our Cubs missed their turn in the show.
There’s a dream that’s been dreamt for awhile,
That we’d smoke the Cardinals with style.
We’d tromp ’em real good,
Like we know we should.
This Cub’s dream isn’t wicked nor vile.
There was an old team called the Cubs,
Who for years have looked just like subs.
They’ve tried to get better,
But have seemed in fetters,
‘Cause the curse has left all those flubs.
Posted 7/30/07
At last,
My Cubs have come along
Your losing days are over and
Winning’s like a song…
Oh yeah…
At last,
The wind is blowing out,
.500’s in your tail lights.
Last night when I looked at you.
I had a dream that has to come true
A dream that has you wearing rings
I had a dream you won the series
A thrill that I had never, ever known!
You won…you won,
And now the spell is cast
And here you are in Cub heaven
For you have made it
At last.