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“Let’s Play Two!”

By Dr. Rajesh C. Oza

Ernie Banks wanted
To play a doubleheader
Every day, because

He loved baseball so
Much that one was not enough
To satisfy him.

Wilbur Wood lost two
Games of a doubleheader.
He started both games,

Throwing his trademark
Knuckleball ball to twenty-four
Wins, twenty losses.

Billy Williams and
Ron Santo played every game
In 1965.

Perhaps a couple
Players will play all the games
In 2024.

Ferguson Jenkins
Threw 29 complete games
In 1974.

MLB may not
Have 29 complete games
In 2024.

So why does baseball
Today give hitters days off
And pitchers pitch counts?

Is Pampers part of
How managers lead their teams?
Or a diaper brand?

Dr. Oza’s novel Double Play sits at the intersection of Ernie Banks’ Cubs, the Negro Leagues, riding the El, wrongful convictions, immigration and friendship. It will be published in October 2024 by Chicago’s Third World Press.

 

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White Sox Brownfield

by James Finn Garner

Eloy was my boy
His power was a gimme
A South Side homeboy
Just like Pico and Timmy.

These faces are all gone — oy!
Ruined, traded, DFA’d.
The advice of Sox coaches, boy,
Should make any player afraid.

Now there’s no joy
At 35th and Shields
Hope is destroyed
At Fill-in-the-Blank Field.

Should we ask the batboy?
Maybe he has a solution.
The EPA should deploy
To contain this pollution.

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The Ryno

by Dr. Rajesh C. Oza

With apologies to Ogden Nash’s “The Rhinoceros”

The rhino is a homely beast.
Our Ryno was a home run beast.

For human eyes he’s not a feast.
For Cubbie fans he was a feast.

Farewell, farewell, you old rhinoceros.
Hello, hello, you stalwart Ryne Sandberg-us.

I’ll stare at something less prepoceros.
I’ll admire your likeness as a bronze iceberg-us.

Welcome to the HOF pantheon outside of Wrigley.
Along with Ernie, Billy, Ronnie, Harry, and Fergie.

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Baseball Rooting

by Thomas O. Davenport

Your favorite athletes move from team to team
The hitters, hurlers, fielders all chase bucks
Old-time fan loyalty is but a dream
As players drive their wealth away in trucks

Free agents’ names and faces give no clue
So raise your voice for the best color scheme
Choose purple, crimson, orange, green or blue
Urge on your favorite sports apparel theme

Or pick the mascot that’s most bold and fierce
The one inclined to slash and slice and slay
With jaws that chomp and bloody claws that pierce
My Tiger dines on fricasseed Blue Jay

What’s more, our park serves only the best ale
No better motive could there be to cheer
And though our squad may flounder, flop and fail
Hip hip hooray! Let’s hear it for our beer!

When you select the club that you’ll support
The nine athletes for whom you’ll choose to root
Ignore the friendly confines of the sport
And contemplate the price in hard-earned loot

The cost is high each time you disembark
So back the team that charges less to park

Tom’s collection of comic verse, Get the Hell to Work, was published by Kelsay Books in 2020.