Reviving the Art of Baseball Doggerel
Now we’ve missed our chance to know
Of Tucupita Marcano
He wasn’t the next DiMaggio
But not everyone can be a hero
MLB said he’s got to go
For treating his phone like a casino
The bets he made — 400 or so —
Made his sportsbook dime him, bro!
Betting is here to stay, so
Get used to stories like Marcano’s
Owners love nothing but centavos
Ruined lives are the quid pro quo
Originally appeared in The Chicago Baseball Magazine.
Inning 1: Zero hits off pitching phenom Paul Skenes;
Three Cubs go down swinging.
Inning 2: Praise the name pronounced Skeenz;
Three more Ks: Ka-ching, Ka-ching, Ka-chinging.
Inning 3: He throws the ball 100 miles per hour;
“Only” one strikeout, but Cubs still have no hits.
Inning 4: From where does the kid get that power?
Two more strikeouts; batters flailing like twits.
Inning 5: Pitch after pitch, Skenes dominates;
A walk spoils his bid for perfection.
Inning 6: Comparisons whispered about all-time greats;
Quick-hook manager says, “You’re done, son.”
Innings 7, 8 and 9: Wrigley Field turns bitter;
Pirates fans grumble, “Coulda been a no-hitter!”
Fish for sale! Yo, fish for sale!
Marlins produce never goes stale!
A new rebuild set in motion,
A sinking team near the rising ocean.
In the glaring Miami sun
Any squad will come undone.
Don’t fall in love with Luis Arráez.
He’ll disappear before your eyes.
Burger, Bell, and Tanner Scott
Could be gone when summer’s hot,
And things won’t get calm later:
Come fall, bye-bye, Skip Schumaker
Root for the Marlins? Don’t forget:
A time-share is all you’ll ever get.
I was one of the Clean Sox,
but that doesn’t mean I was perfect:
at the start of my career
I played professionally under an assumed name
in order to try to keep my college eligibility,
and I was a contributor to the pot gotten up
to reward Detroit for beating Boston in ’17,
something that the Dirty Sox later
tried to make out as part of a fix
Such rewarding was common at the time,
though I can see now how it could be misconstrued
I should have taken the job as Yankees manager
when it was offered to me;
I thought I was going to succeed Mr. Mack
when he retired, and that retirement would be in a few years
When that few years passed without his retiring,
I took the job with Mr. Yawkey,
and what I did and didn’t do in that job
has justifiably dimmed my reputation,
something that I now see in retrospect
