By James Finn Garner
You think all your dues’ve been paid
You’d love a post-season parade
But Jake Arrieta
Could not have been better —
What to do except punch Gator-Ade?
RIP: A Sixty-Year Lament
by Robert Hilliard
They’re gone.
Pete, Pee-wee and Jackie
entertaining the
knothole gang
by crashing into walls,
hustling infield rollers,
and stealing home with a bang.
They’re gone.
Dolph and Cookie and Leo.
No Lip to the umps
No soda or peanuts or crackerjacks.
No cries from the
twenty-five cent bleachers seats
“Wait till next year!”
No more we’ll be chumps.
And Hoyt ain‘t hoit anymore.
They’re gone.
Van Lingle the Mungo and Sandy the K
and Campy, Newk, Preacher
and Mickey, who dropped the third out,
kicking the game away.
Even after Ralph hurled
the Shot Heard ‘Round the World
we were soothed by the guy in the catbird seat.
Red’s voice helped take away the heat.
There was sweet-swinging Duke
and Gil’s four in a game.
Why aren’t they
in baseball’s Hall of Fame?
We can still boo the Giants,
but it just ain’t the same.
Waiting year after year
for a moment delirious,
to root for the trolley boys,
at last, in 1955,
in the Woild Serious.
Finally, some fame,
more games to be won,
big houses to tally.
And the money ain’t lame.
But poof, they were gone,
a pox on O’Malley.
A pseudo-team now in LA
copping a cherished name.
An usurper.
A pretender.
A thief.
For shame! For shame!
It’s gone.
They’re gone.
Rest In Peace Ebbets Field.
Rest In Peace Brooklyn Dodgers.
Miller and Tex
by Hart Seely
With apologies to Robert Frost
Some say the team will end with Miller,
Some say with Tex.
From what I’ve seen of bullpen filler,
I’d much prefer a quicker killer.
But if we’re bound to perish next,
I think I know enough of fate
To say that for destruction, Tex
Is not as great
As oral sex.
An Ode for Dave Dombrowski
by James Finn Garner
For all the effort
Restoring glory
The October result’s
The entire story
A franchise reborn
Butts in the seats
Traffic downtown
Pennant repeats
Strong arms and bats–
Some for the ages!–
Might end up mere stats
On old dusty pages
Without a ring
You’re as good as dead
When the Pizza King
Shouts, “Off with his head!”
MLB All-Grain-Tuber-and-Legume Team
by James Finn Garner
1B Bill Bean
2B Potato Cueto
SS Oats DeMaestri
3B Peanuts Lowrey
LF Zach Wheat
CF Billy Beane
RF Sam Rice
C . Yam Yaryan
LHP Beany Jacobson, Peanuts Kantlehner
RHP Lee Wheat, Colter Bean, Goober Zuber
MGR Johnny Oates