Reviving the Art of Baseball Doggerel
Baseball without Topps
is a hotdog without mustard:
it can be done but why bother?
Better stick with the custard.
Bubblegum was a bonus
with the stats and the dishing
like how they spent the offseason
hunting and fishing.
But Topps could be cruel
as you opened a pack warily,
praying for Hank Aaron
and getting Marv Throneberry.
When I was young, in the ’60s,
baseball was a snore in the winter.
I used to take my grass-stained bat
to bed with me,
and smell summer ’til I slumbered.
Other times I’d take my glove
to bed when the smell of oiled horse hide
lead to dreams of heroic runs for a fly ball.
60 years later,
the internet has replaced
my baseball gear late into the night.
Now, there’s free agency to speculate into exhaustion.
Who will sign where?
Why?
For how much?
Which teams are selling?
Who’s buying who?
What will your team look like next year?
Who’s going to greener grass?
Who’s loyal to their fan base?
Now, I’m old enough for my 2nd childhood,
I might wander the aisles of a thrift Store,
seek out an old glove to sleep with,
and see if dreams of dreams come back to me.
But I can already tell that metal bats don’t carry
the allure of grass stains on ash.
We started out fresh
in April
with a new ball
a ‘league’ ball
we called it
ivory colored
smooth
round
red stitching
we couldn’t get our nails
under
games went till dark
innings uncounted
till an dispute ended
them
or a lost ball
it survived
mud, dust, the smell
of gutters
disappearance in the hedge
or was it a jinx
by mid-July
it wore the unlucky face
of a sharecropper
a face lined with betrayal
fighting a losing war
with time and rain
by late September
embalmed with electrician’s tape
soggy, half-dead
lopsided
an oblate spheroid
it welcomed last rites
on that cellar shelf
as another cockeyed
semi-round object
took its place
not cowhide
but pigskin
On the rough diamond,
the hand-cut field below the dog lot and barn,
we rehearsed the strict technique
of bunting. I watched from the infield,
the mound, the backstop
as your left hand climbed the bat, your legs
and shoulders squared toward the pitcher.
You could drop it like a seed
down either base line. I admired your style,
but not enough to take my eyes off the bank
that served as our center-field fence.
Years passed, three leagues of organized ball,
no few lives. I could homer
into the left-field lot of Carmichael Motors,
and still you stressed the same technique,
the crouch and spring, the lead arm absorbing
just enough impact. That whole tiresome pitch
about basics never changing,
and I never learned what you were laying down.
Like a hand brushed across the bill of a cap,
let this be the sign
I’m getting a grip on the sacrifice.
David Bottoms, the Poet Laureate of Georgia from 2000 to 2012, currently holds the John B. and Elena Diaz-Amos Distinguished
Chair in English Letters at Georgia State University in Atlanta.
I once hit clothespins
for the Chicago Cubs.
I’d go out after supper
when the wash was in
and collect clothespins
from under four stories
of clothesline.
A swing-and-a-miss
was a strike-out;
the garage roof, Willie Mays,
pounding his mitt
under a pop fly.
Bushes, a double,
off the fence, triple,
and over, home run.
The bleachers roared.
I was all they ever needed for the flag.
New records every game—
once, 10 homers in a row!
But sometimes I’d tag them
so hard they’d explode,
legs flying apart in midair,
pieces spinning crazily
in all directions.
Foul Ball! What else
could I call it?
The bat was real.
Stuart Dybek, the recipient of both Guggenheim and Macarthur fellowships, is the author of seven collections of short stories and poetry. He is the Distinguished Writer in Residence at Northwestern University where he teaches at the School of Professional Studies.