by Jim Siergey
A far cry from the slack days of Banks
Simply for that, the faithful give thanks
Repeat dreams grow black
This year’s a throwback
It looks like the Dodgers and Yanks
Aroldis Chapman Faces Cleveland
by Stephen Jones
Pitching déjá vu:
Once a Cub, now a Yankee
But same tribe of bats
For It’s One, Two, Three…
by Jim Siergey
No poking of eyes or skull crack
No choking or pies or face smack
No choice to pick two
Or Woo Woo Woo Woo!
The Stooges revere Connie Mack!
The Love Song of J. Alfred Bleacherbum
By Bill Savage and James Finn Garner
Let us go then, you and I,
Where Wrigley’s spread out against the sky
Like the Cardinals etherized down the standings;
Let us go, through half-constructed streets,
Muttering about our seats
Of restless day and night games and new hotels
And vanished sawdust taverns that never served an oyster:
Streets that flow with tedious arguments
Of where to spend your cents
To bleed you to an overwhelming debt–
Oh, do not ask, “How much is it?”
Let us go, stand in line and make our visit…
In barrooms, fans come and go
Talking of Maddon, Jed ‘n’ Theo.
Bill Savage is an associate professor and adviser for the Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences at Northwestern University. Follow him on Twitter at @RogersParkMan, where this poem first appeared.Â
Wonderful Iron Horse Lou
by Willard Mullin
Published in the New York World Telegram, May 1939.
You heard of the Wonderful Iron Horse Lou,
Who looked as if he would never be through,
For fourteen years as good as new,
And then of a sudden, he — ah, it’s true!
Gehrig was not like the common folk;
Created, was he, like the strongest oak;
Seemed nothing could crack on this hardy bloke!
No flaw to be found, no use to try
With hand as good and sure as his eye,
His arm was just as strong as his knee;
His back and shoulders enough for three;
And his legs the best you ever did see.
A thousand ballgames passed and found
Gehrig at first base strong and sound.
Fifteen hundred came and went;
Eighteen hundred and still unbent.
And then the two thousand twenty-first game
Playing as usual, much the same.
His body was sturdy — just like the start;
His lungs were still as strong as his heart,
He was sound all over as any part,
And yet, as a whole, it is past a doubt
In one more game he will be worn out.
The second of May, Thirty-Nine!
McCarthy was naming his men down the line —
And what do you think the people found?
Dahlgren on first to the right of the mound!
And off in the dugout with head going round
Was the man who had played himself into the ground.
You see, of course, if you’re not a dunce
How he went to pieces all at once —
All at once, and nothing first —
Just as bubbles do when they burst.
End of the wonderful Iron Horse Lou.
Flesh is flesh — and Lou is through.
Willard Mullin, a widely syndicated sports cartoonist, was the creator of the Brooklyn Bum, the clownish personification of the Dodgers’ team in the 1940s and ’50s.Â