Reviving the Art of Baseball Doggerel
To earn Bochy another trophy:
$how Corey Seager that you’re eager
Give Semien a couple extra million
Grow l’esprit of Garcia
Give up da funk for Jung
Pray Mad Max can still stack
Then parry with Montgomery
And stay out of the bullpen
whenever you can.
My legend will soon be a Pfaadt accompli
Wait, is Lovullo coming for me?!
For 17 batters, I shackled those Phils,
Manhandling the mighty with my poison pills.
But this analytic whoozywhatzit
Overthinking has forced my exit.
A master thief is Leody Tavares
Stealing home runs from over tall fences
Think one is long gone?
Oh hun, you’d be wrong
He’s the David Niven of Texas’ defenses.
All I know is that some other people made it big
Some other people got paid, some got famous
but all I know is I wanna play, everyday
I don’t care to compare to the Babe or Speaker
I just want to raise the crowd when I come to bat,
I want to quiet the crowd when I make a catch
I want to be all of that for a quarter dollar a day.
In memory of Louise Glück, 1943-2023, winner of the 2020 Nobel Prize in Literature
When Louise was a young-adult,
The Orioles were high-flying.
Dave, Jim, and Mike were 20-game winners;
Brooks, Davey, and Paul were Gold-Glovers;
Boog and Frank slugged homers to grateful fans;
Earl shoved dirt on umpires’ cleats.
Days before Louise died,
The Orange Birds were swept.
Balty fans wept salty tears of sadness:
“We were made fools of.
And the scent of mock orange
drifts through the window.
How can I rest?
How can I be content
when there is still
that odor in the world?”
(Referencing Glück’s “Mock Orange”)