Two for Ron Santo and the Hall of Fame
By Stuart Shea
The Hall of Fame’s honor and riches
Ron Santo deserved without pitches.
. But denied for too long
. Was the man’s well-earned song
By an old bunch of sons of bitches.
.
by Cary Donham
Ron’s a hero to folks diabetic
‘Cause on the field he was super-kinetic
. Whether diving for balls
. Or arguing calls
Or clicking his heels so aesthetic
Yeshiva Blues
by Sid Yiddish
At bat was the great Solomon Mitzvah
A clutch-hitting Jew from South Boston’s Yeshiva Finstah
He smashed the ball hard,
Straight out of the yard
But it bounced back and wounded his kishkah.
Matty Alou, The Poem
By Hart Seely
Roy White, you did all right.
Jim Ray Hart, you played your part.
Willie Mays, those were the days!
Matty Alou, is it really true?
Duke Sims, you climbed on limbs.
Sparky Lyle, you made us smile.
Horace Clarke, you jumped the shark.
Matty Alou, we must bid adieu?
Harvey Kuenn, you made the scene.
Juan Marichal, you gave ‘em hell.
Steve Blass, let’s raise a glass!
Matty Alou, we’ll remember you.
Hart Seely’s new book, The Juju Rules: Or How to Win Ballgames From Your Couch, will be published by Houghton Mifflin in time for Opening Day 2012. You can pre-order it from Amazon at this link.
Glowering at Bowering
by Pseud à Nîmes
New York, London, Paris, Munich
Everybody talk about, mmm….
Pop music, aye, and news and sport
But to Bardball blast, we must retort
From the bleachers, and godly seats
Loving testimonies – and testy tweets
Au contraire, in Europe there is but little
Interest – like our economy, entirely brittle
In our excitement, we do refrain
From all small talk of one Ferris Fain
Unknown to us, across the Golden Pond
In our view, his sport just a frond
Of the nascent game we called rounders
Those damn Yankees – cads and bounders!
Ferris Fain
by George Bowering
I’ll never see his like again,
My favourite hitter, Ferris Fain.
In London, Amsterdam and Paris,
They talk of nothing else but Ferris.
He always managed to amaze,
This handsome batsman of the A’s.
In 2002, George Bowering was appointed the first Parliamentary Poet Laureate of Canada. His newest book, The Diamond Alphabet, is now available from BookThug.
