Reviving the Art of Baseball Doggerel
Each year at the end of July
Teams prepare to sell and buy
The services of various guys
Who’re excelling on so-so teams
Or have lost that “new baller” sheen
Or whose fat contracts have burst their seams
Some teams move to go all in
While others see the talent’s thin
“Let the rebuild begin (agin)”
April hopes implode and sink
And fans look for another kink
To fill their time as daylight shrinks
Until daring to dream again in spring.
I started life with two strikes:
born to alcoholic, unmarried parents
and probably suffering from what would come to be called
fetal alcohol syndrome
Mom dying when I was seven,
Dad pretty much abandoning me,
leaving school after the sixth grade
and working dangerous jobs;
none of those managed to strike me out
Baseball saved me for a number of years,
especially my good fortune
in having Joe McCarthy as a manager
I had a fantastic five-year run;
you know the numbers, especially the one
When the Cubs fired McCarthy
and replaced him with Rogers Hornsby,
that was the beginning of the end for me
I was out of baseball a few years later,
and my alcoholism was the third strike,
taking me out of life at forty-eight
If you hope to hit the fastball,
You dare not hesitate.
Demography is destiny,
But character is fate.
Alan Neff is a lapsed civil litigator, legal writer and White Sox meathead. You can find his writing many places, including Just Security.
When your team’s offense ain’t up to par
And sluggishness has gone too far
Tell Triple A you need your new star
.      Lars Nootbaar!
Rejuvenating like a new cute car
Or Celia Cruz shouting “Azucar!”
To batting woes, say au revoir
.     Here’s Lars Nootbaar!
His range is measured by hectare
Strokes his bat like a steel guitar
(Hope he lasts longer than a shooting star)
.      Go, Lars Nootbaar!
Cynical sportswriters called me Sly
because I played fast and loose with the rules
We nearly lost Bob Feller because of it,
but his and Bill’s desire for him to remain with Cleveland
because of our rapport as fellow Iowans,
plus the Commissioner’s decision
to save the owners from themselves
by forestalling a bidding war,
carried the day for us
We weren’t as fortunate with Tommy Henrich,
but we got lucky again with Lou Boudreau
Two out of three is a good batting average in rule-breaking,
so I guess maybe the sportswriters were right
