Reviving the Art of Baseball Doggerel
They’re mental about money.
Win-lose, $ is king.
But truth-be-told,
They’re not so bold
When the cash drawer rings.
Except when their brand
Is elevated,
And its cost is weighed
Against profit, loss
And what tomorrow brings.
Old Zim
When I think of him
Looks like chaw and tar
And a grand har-har
To those squares
Who don’t care
About baseball
And giving your all
For what you love.
And when push comes to shove,
Had Martinez been 70,
Zim would’ve pounded him plenty.
You’re our kind of guy.
Goodbye, Popeye.
More than the assemblage of players who will rotate their postures
from defense to offense,
who will take up positions from home plate to the fences,
more than the lineup and pitching rotation,
more than the lead off and then some to the closer,
a spirit that is summoned when the assemblage takes the field
their tasks and dreams to pursue:
but not supernatural, instead, it is quite actual
When they come together,
in stadium, lot, field, yard or park in any form of weather,
in day or night, it is there in clear sight:
the element beyond mere addition of nine on a field
to be seen when it is present, even more when absent,
a thing of beauty in a 3-6-3 or a 8-2 putout at the plate.
In coming together, in play after play, as if in a dream,
onlookers may say it is what it does seem:
they are playin’ as a team!
Right by the lake,
The home of mistakes,
Wrigley Field, where fans make a din.
100 years old,
Stories untold,
Waiting for a World Series win.
Tickle this town!
Just one crown
Would make the old and young ones grin.
Will it be so?
Will we ever know
The joy of a winner
That feels just like sin?
A game of pepper–
flattened grass keeps getting
back up