Reviving the Art of Baseball Doggerel
These are the saddest of possible words:
Steinfeldt to Evers to Chance.
Trio of bear cubs fleeter than birds,
Steinfeldt to Evers to Chance.
One of them nearly completely forgotten,
Simply because of a name that was not in
Accordance with metrical elegance — rotten!
Steinfeldt to Evers to Chance.
Mikhail Horowitz is an American poet, performance poet, parodist, satirist, social commentator, author and editor. He lives in the Hudson River valley.
It’s no little thing
To be Orion Kerkering.
The Phillies keep on tinkering
And now will test his youthful wing
Not against org players who hit with a “ping”
But big-league hitters whose bats whistle and sing
At any imperfect offering.
Will he be Joker
Or will he be King?
It’s no little thing
To be Orion Kerkering.
Dave Kingman would give it his all
Each powerful swing at the ball
But, missing, he’d spin
And, to his chagrin
Would teeter off balance and fall.
Illustration by Jim Siergey
Are you sinking in the quickstandings?
Does your bullpen perform crash-landings?
Were you chattering all through the summer,
yet now only muttering “bummer”?
Have bad hops invaded your dreams
As you wilt against much lesser teams?
Do your screamers hook foul or find leather?
Is your clean-up man under the weather?
Did you run yourself out of an inning?
Is your manager’s hairline thinning?
Does that magic number refuse to dwindle?
Can your champagne dreams even fill a thimble?
It seemed like a season you’d remember—
But then came the chill winds of September.
Oblique muscle strain
Shohei absent from lineup
Angels struggle on