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Snuck into Night Games to See Home Run Derbies Vs. LA Angels Bulky Steve Bilko

by Gerard Sarnat, MD

There are two kinds of light: glow that illumines and glare that obscures.
— James Thurber

Once Hollywood Star Minor League baseball ballplayer’s feet of clay.
Spoofing calls, false wet signatures, our guilty dog barks the loudest.
Toothless guy with tobacco juice dribbling down each double chin.
Avowed eyeglass lenses thick as bottom of some old Coke bottle.

Hometown heroes as super-villains tend to weather storms.
Cloudy undergraduate eleven-year plan, dishwasher blahs
— black helicopters land backyard next to my clown car.
That’s in 1953, the year .213 hitting Señor Outfielder

played his only full season in the Majors with
last-place Pittsburgh Pirates after The Mick
hit a 500-foot home run landed on Forbes
Field’s roof during an exhibition game.

Bernier fell on dark times later in life.
Homeless near the end, he was found
dead in a garage the result of suicide
autopsy ascribed to strangulation.

Twenty-nine years this month
since Carlos bit proverbial
dust, after his sad hanging
may he now rest in peace.

 

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MLB All-NRA Team

By Jim Siergey

Possibly suiting up as the Houston Colt .45s?

1B   Chuck “The Rifleman” Connors
2B   Shooty Babitt
SS   Bee Bee Richard
3B   Milt “Bump” Stock
LF   Scott Bullett
CF   Brian Hunter
RF   Joe Cannon
C     Tom Gunning

P      Bullet Bob Bush

Mgr. Burt Shotten

 

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RIP, Le Gran Orange

by Jim Siergey

Dubbed with a nickname
that, alas, doth remain
rhymeless

But all your exploits
with ‘Stros, ‘Spos and Detroit
remain timeless

Oh, and lest I forgets
also the Mets

 

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Fantasy Owner’s Lament

by George Bowering

Pardon me for all the bitching,
But how come I get such lousy pitching?

Every year I become a mourner
For my crappy luck at the hot corner.

My other infielders are doing fine,
If you’re a fan of the Mendoza Line.

I wish I could draft all over again,
Starting with good old Ferris Fain.

 

George Bowering was appointed the first ever Canadian Parliamentary Poet Laureate in 2002. Author of more than 100 books, he is Professor Emeritus at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, BC.

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Oh Doctor! Yanks in Six

by the Village Elliott

Since “Dem Bums Clubbed Bear Babies,” who knows:
If Bronx Baby Bombers bash ‘Stros,
Are Dodgers Yanks’ “cousin”
Ninth time out of dozen?
Jah must know ‘cuz he asked Billy Loes.*

__________________

* Before dem Bums met the Bronx Bombers in the 1952 World Series, Brooklyn’s resident northpaw wit Billy Loes, when asked his prediction for the series, was quoted, “Yanks in Six.” Headlined the next day, Loes claimed he was misquoted. “I said, ‘Yanks in seven.'”

The Yankees and Dodgers have met in 11 previous times, the most any two teams have met in the Fall Classic (Second, Yanks-Giants (5-2); third, Yanks-Cards (2-3). The Yankees have won eight (1941, ’47, ’49, ’52, ’53, ’56, ’77, ’78). The Dodgers won in 1955 (Brooklyn’s only crown), ’63 and ’81.