Reviving the Art of Baseball Doggerel
Poor Timmy! Zonked by a double whammy
When he chose to throw hands with Joe Rami.
First Jose’s right hook
Left him cold as a chinook
And on the way down he twisted both hammies!
(Not really, but admit it, Sox fans — you still felt compelled to double-check.)
Lourdes Gurriel
Knows Seattle well.
He loves their seafood and coffee thing
And wants to attend Wagner’s “Ring.”
Bryce Elder
Spends the off-season as a gelder.
Separating boars from their testes
Keeps him at his besties.
Spencer Strider
Has a thing about spiders.
Even though his last name does that Middle Earth thing,
He can’t bear to sit through “Lord of the Rings.”
Justin Steele
“Has a heart just like a wheel,
“Let him roll it to you.”
(He’s a big Macca fan, too.)
Marcus Semien
Is happy to be a simian.
Can’t imagine being a cat, a cow or a fish
If a genie gave him three wishes.
Nick Castellanos
Thinks he could totally take Thanos,
Darkseid, Kang, the Joker and Lex
Luthor (hmmm, a superiority complex?).
Camilo Doval
Loves music atonal.
Get him started on Anton Webern
Only if you have time to burn.
Lars Nootbaar
Is buying a root farm,
Gonna grow some carrots, beets, and parsnips.
“Root for my rutabagas!” he quips.
I don’t think I was a genius
by any objective measurement,
but it wasn’t hard to seem like one
compared to most of the other owners,
who considered attendance at the games
to be the fans’ religious obligation
My treating baseball as a business
that had to attract its customers
with a good product and fun at the park
was derided as heresy
(though many of my ideas were soon copied)
And that wasn’t their only resort to mystical nonsense:
they first fought, and then severely limited, night games
Just imagine:
running a business whose hours of operation
(set by you)
preclude the vast majority of customers
from patronizing your business.
The captain has turned off the seatbelt sign and out comes the lighter and with a flick and a dip the birthday cake is aglow and in the arms of the attendant with an enhanced chest followed by the power hitter with enhanced pecs, the guy no one likes, and everybody now happy birthday dear skipper and of course there’s the lefty bullpen specialist or whatever in the vestibule with a camo koozie and matching trucker hat hitting on the other very good looking attendant in fact look at that all of them are All-Stars that’s no coincidence because even in this day of time’s up I’m not here for you there’s still more work to do especially in the big leagues but we’re getting there and hey now batter up everyone’s got a chance the night before opening day and tonight’s flight is the time to feel good because tomorrow afternoon at about the time hats cover hearts for the rockets’ red glare comes the spotlight of expectancy right in the eyes but not now, right now this is the feel good express and the coaches they all feel it especially the hitting coach, guy thinks this is a seventies British rock band, and shortstop batting leadoff he feels it, mister happy peeking over the seat in front of him eyeing this curious celebration, and the dad-bod married guy with three kids what’s he even play now anyway left field now he’s two years postpeak and two years yet on his contract you know he’s hoping he can keep it together that long, oh but what’s that, did you see Arañita coming out of the can just now, looks like he puked his guts out, skinny guy with rubber arm and baconsizzle fastball, poor guy all the tools save location and he’ll lay it up for you, that cockhigh fastball and he knows he doesn’t have that tool yet that’s for the vets with meat on their bones, drives him to the can it does, but he’s a bet for the future that he can pull it together and turn in something nice, a good career, and isn’t that what this flight is, a manifest of all the hopefuls here together at once on board at six hundred knots and thirty thousand feet, an earthbound missile at the apogee still up in the clouds, trajectory of the bombs off Arañita, peanuts and Cracker Jack happy birthday to you.
Ken Derry is a former editor for the New York Yankees and has an MFA in Creative Writing from The New School. Some fiction credits include HAD, Danse Macabre, and The Carolina Quarterly.