Reviving the Art of Baseball Doggerel
Does a Baby Bull have Buddha nature?
Not even the wind,
fluttering prayer flags
in the abandoned grandstand,
can say.
Peanuts and popcorn
in your begging bowl,
a pinecone nestled snugly
in your glove.
How many times being hit by a pitch
until you gained enlightenment?
379 homers? Or
379 drops of rain
pelting a temple bell?
Photo by the author’s sister.
1B Hank Greenberg
2B Grant Green
SS Pumpsie Green
3B Andy Green
LF Mike Greenwell
CF Lenny Green
RF Danny Green
C Charlie Greene
LHP Chris Green
RHP Clarence Beers, Jameson Taillon, Suds Sutherland
MGR Dallas Green
Baudelaire went
to a baseball game
and bought a hot dog
and lit up a pipe
of opium.
The New York Yankees
were playing
the Detroit Tigers.
In the fourth inning
an angel committed
suicide by jumping
off a low cloud.
The angel landed
on second base,
causing the
whole infield
to crack like
a huge mirror.
The game was
called on
account of
fear.
From the book The Pill Versus the Springhill Mine Disaster. Copyright 1965 by Richard Brautigan. Photo by Chris Felver/Getty Images.
His drinking was different in sunshine,
as if it couldn’t be bad. Sudden, manic,
he swung into a laugh, bought me
two ice creams, said One for each hand.
Half the hot game I licked Good Humor
running down wrists. My bird mother earlier,
packing my pockets with sun block,
had hopped her warning: Be careful.
So, pinned between his knees, I held
his Old Style in both hands
while he streaked the cream on my cheeks
and slurred, My little Indian princess.
Home run: the hairy necks of men in front
jumped up, thighs torn from gummy green bleachers
to join the violent scramble. Father
held me close and said, Be careful,
be careful. But why should I be full of care
with his thick arms circling my shoulders,
with a high smiling sun, like a home run,
in the upper right-hand corner of the sky?
Beth Ann Fennelly recently served as the poet laureate of Mississippi and teaches in the MFA Program at the University of Mississippi, where she is a four-time teaching award winner. This poem appeared in her book, Open House.
1B Pete Roses
2B Cupid Childs
SS Jake Flowers
3B Candy Jim Taylor
LF Barry Bon-Bonds
CF Candy Maldonado
RF Eros “Country” Slaughter
C Gabby Heartnett
LHP Slim Love, Vance Lovelace, Richard Lovelady
RHP Ben Flowers, Bill Monbouquette, Vicente Amor
MGR Bobby Valentine
