Posted on

Lineup for Yesterday (3 of 3)

by Ogden Nash

R is for Ruth.
To tell you the truth,
There’s just no more to be said,
Just R is for Ruth.

S is for Speaker,
Swift center-field tender,
When the ball saw him coming,
It yelled, “I surrender.”

T is for Terry
The Giant from Memphis
Whose .400 average
You can’t overemphis.

U would be ‘Ubell
if Carl were a cockney;
We say Hubbell and Baseball
Like Football and Rockne.

V is for Vance
The Dodger’s very own Dazzy;
None of his rivals
Could throw as fast as he.

W is for Wagner,
The bowlegged beauty;
Short was closed to all traffic
With Honus on duty.

X is the first
of two x’s in Foxx
Who was right behind Ruth
with his powerful soxx.

Y is for Young
The magnificent Cy;
People battled against him,
But I never knew why.

Z is for Zenith
The summit of fame.
These men are up there.
These men are the game.


Originally appeared in the January 1949 issue of SPORT Magazine.

Posted on

Lineup for Yesterday (2 of 3)

by Ogden Nash

J is for Johnson
The Big Train in his prime
Was so fast he could throw
Three strikes at a time.

K is for Keeler,
As fresh as green paint,
The fastest and mostest
To hit where they ain’t.

L is for Lajoie
Whom Clevelanders love,
Napoleon himself,
With glue in his glove.

M is for Matty,
Who carried a charm
In the form of an extra
brain in his arm.

N is for Newsom,
Bobo’s favorite kin.
You ask how he’s here,
He talked himself in.

O is for Ott
Of the restless right foot.
When he leaned on the pellet,
The pellet stayed put.

P is for Plank,
The arm of the A’s;
When he tangled with Matty
Games lasted for days.

Q is for Don Quixote
Cornelius Mack;
Neither Yankees nor years
Can halt his attack.

Originally published in the January 1949 issue of SPORT Magazine.

Posted on

Lineup for Yesterday (1 of 3)

by Ogden Nash

A is for Alex
The great Alexander;
More goose eggs he pitched
Than a popular gander.

B is for Bresnahan
Back of the plate;
The Cubs were his love,
and McGraw his hate.

C is for Cobb,
Who grew spikes and not corn,
And made all the basemen
Wish they weren’t born.

D is for Dean,
The grammatical Diz,
When they asked, Who’s the tops?
Said correctly, I is.

E is for Evers,
His jaw in advance;
Never afraid
To Tinker with Chance.

F is for Fordham
And Frankie and Frisch;
I wish he were back
With the Giants, I wish.

G is for Gehrig,
The Pride of the Stadium;
His record pure gold,
His courage, pure radium.

H is for Hornsby;
When pitching to Rog,
The pitcher would pitch,
Then the pitcher would dodge.

I is for Me,
Not a hard-hitting man,
But an outstanding all-time
Incurable fan.

Originally appeared in the January 1949 issue of SPORT Magazine.

Posted on

Willie Keeler

By Michael Ceraolo

I wasn’t above shenanigans
such as hiding extra baseballs in the high grass,
but unlike some of my teammates and others in the League,
I drew the line at verbal and physical taunts
McGraw would even ride his teammates:
one day he rode me too far,
so I whipped him and he stopped riding me
You probably know my hitting philosophy,
or at least the most-quoted part,
so I’ll give it again in full:
“Keep your eye clear and hit ’em where they ain’t”
Many through the years have ignored the first part
and fewer every year follow the second part,
but it’s still sound advice today.

Posted on

Pop Up, Up and Away

by Hilary Barta

A pop-up Dave Kingman once popped
Was a feat no one since then has topped
In the ‘Dome, hit so high
Through a hole toward the sky
That today there’s no sign it has stopped.

__________________
Hilary explains: “It was 26 years ago when one of quirkiest moments in Metrodome history occurred. Oakland’s Dave Kingman — one of baseball’s all-time feast-or-famine hackers — hit a pop-up off left-hander Frank Viola that was so high that it went through a hole in the roof of the Dome and never came down.”

Title by Sky-High Jim Siergey.