Reviving the Art of Baseball Doggerel
1BÂ Â Jim Bottomley
2BÂ Â Wally Backman
SSÂ Â Tommy Butts
3BÂ Â Josh Booty
LFÂ Â Heinie Manush
CFÂ Â Chris Duffy
RFÂ Â Phil Reardon
CÂ Â Harry Cheek
LHPÂ Â Paul Assenmacher
RHP  José Butto, Duff Brumley, Matt Duff
MGRÂ Â Heinie Groh
As children, Henry Aaron and Don Sutton
grew up in towns three hours apart
and learned the game between fields of cotton;
then the hitter moved east, the pitcher, west,
as they took paths to opposite coasts.
Two All-Stars, they became among the best.
Upon dying, Sutton arrived first and may
have used the time to loosen his arm
while warming up on the clay
waiting for Hammerin’ Hank’s arrival.
As they play, now in eternal prime,
celestial fans admire erstwhile rivals
and wonder, from where they sit,
what is the most wonderous display:
the sweet pitch or power-driven hit?
A former New Yorker, Bill Cushing lives and writes in Los Angeles as a Dodger fan (by order of his wife!). His latest collection, Just a Little Cage of Bone (Southern Arizona Press), contains this and other sports-related poems.
I swing,
with eyes: perfect,
brown bat — moving,
above brown dirt,
(above my bare brown feet).
Whistling seams widen my eyes;
the ball pops!
I hear my Dad (jumping off the mound).
He’s really twenty thousand people
cheering for me,
and my home run
(that went all the way over the dugout).
There’s a sports metaphor for everything:
the wind does its thing down the river
and the crowd goes wild. A grand slam
of a Sunday: lumpy pancakes for breakfast
as the day breaks open, twin-yoked, lucky.
Corn and Sugar, those American gods,
or mascots, depending on how you look at them.
Was it just this summer that I felt like a rookie?
Usually just answering the question
is best. Yes. My sister, on the other hand,
is the one who really knows how I feel
about dogs, the way we both sprint
tongues-out towards the fun
that could hurt us, how we share a luck
that means it usually doesn’t —
think me getting on the school bus jacketless
and the clouds parting — a bat’s-crack
of thunder — then it’s gone,
every year on our late-May birthday.
Caroline Riley is a poet and writer from Maryland. She holds an MFA in poetry from West Virginia University. She currently lives in Philadelphia, but continues to support the Washington Nationals.
The outlook wasn’t hopeful for the Mudville nine that day,
Trailing four to two with but one inning left to play.
We’ll cut to the chase to bring this puppy home,
Skipping several stanzas of Thayer’s celebrated poem.
We will pick it up again as the umpire calls strike one,
Little realizing as he does so, what will soon be done.
For at the call, though a good one, Casey throws up his hands,
And as though awaiting the sign, the fans rush from the stands.
Oh, somewhere in this favored land the sun is shining bright;
The band is playing somewhere, and somewhere hearts are light.
But there are consequences when the fans act like horseshit:
And there is no joy in Mudville–the riot caused a forfeit.