Hank O’Day

by Michael Ceraolo

I was a player, manager, and umpire,
the only one to do that in League history,
and that eventually got me in the Hall of Fame,
but of course there’s only one thing everyone wants to know about
A few weeks before the Merkle incident
there was a similar scenario in a Cubs-Pirates game
I told Evers to go home, the game was over,
and wrote up the incident in the game report to President Pulliam
Many have criticized me through the years
for calling Merkle out on a technicality
for what was a common practice at the time,
but we actually called him out
because McGinnity interfered on the play,
which is hardly a technicality
And if I were consumed with technicalities
I could have ruled the game a forfeit to the Cubs
because the Giants couldn’t clear the field
I made what I think is the right decision:
calling the game a tie ended by darkness
First President Pulliam, and then the League Board,
upheld the decision,
and you know the rest of the story

 

Taking a Lead

by Dan Campion

Base-ball is our game: the American game: I connect it with our national character.
—Walt Whitman, quoted by Horace Traubel, Sunday, September 16, 1888

Our scribes used hyphens to effect
The link of “ball” to “base.”
It took a bard, though, to connect
The game to time and place,

To claim that bonds of fellowship
Bound “character” to sport,
Each clutching other in its grip.
We’re privileged to report

The name is safe, the hyphen out,
Walt got the call correct,
Bard, umpire, manager, and scout,
Our leadoff intellect.

 

Hack Wilson

by Michael Ceraolo

I started life with two strikes:
born to alcoholic, unmarried parents
and probably suffering from what would come to be called
fetal alcohol syndrome
Mom dying when I was seven,
Dad pretty much abandoning me,
leaving school after the sixth grade
and working dangerous jobs;
none of those managed to strike me out
Baseball saved me for a number of years,
especially my good fortune
in having Joe McCarthy as a manager
I had a fantastic five-year run;
you know the numbers, especially the one
When the Cubs fired McCarthy
and replaced him with Rogers Hornsby,
that was the beginning of the end for me
I was out of baseball a few years later,
and my alcoholism was the third strike,
taking me out of life at forty-eight

Chicago Cubs Hack Wilson with bat

MLB All-Baseball-Term Team

by Jim Siergey

1B   Jeff Ball
2B   Thomas Field
SS   Homer Bush
3B   Spike Owen

LF   Coaker Triplett
CF   Jim Steels
RF   John Strike

C   Earl Battey

PH   Pinch Thomas

P   Bob Walk, Bruce Hitt, Josh Outman, Eric Hurley

MGR   Joe Battin