Reviving the Art of Baseball Doggerel
Furbush?
Pujols?
Fister?
Head?
I was watching a game
But got Penthouse instead.
A Chatwood? A Dinkelman? They’re not reassuring–
they both sound painful,
though perhaps alluring.
It’s just like the old days, when we’d annoonce
That the Sox had a player named Rusty Kuntz.
Another season
Harbingers of spring
Robins in my yard
This morning
Brewer baseball
On the radio
This afternoon
Snow predicted
By the weekend
Our equanimity
Undisturbed
Winter finally in retreat
Baseball is back
ASTROS
An Appel a day
Would keep the losses away
But he’s not yet ripe.
ANGELS
Ask A. Moreno–
Trout fishing in Cali
Can be expensive.
ATHLETICS
Free and well-favored,
No-names and others’ castoffs
Find their own success.
MARINERS
East coast import
Finds rain not to his liking
Even under roof.
RANGERS
Wash likes sac bunting.
His fellow skippers are glad
To accept the out.
In those days
He wrapped his arms around me
Bracketing my hands on a bat
The swing ours
Hit or miss
In those days
I felt encircled
Firm as the sun
Sure as iron
Hot or cold
In those days
We knew neither past nor future
Neither fear nor fight
Just the pitch tossed to us
Frozen in time
Paul Kocak is the author of Baseball’s Starry Night: Reliving Major League Baseball’s 2011 Wild Card Night of Shock and Awe, which Doris Kearns Goodwin called “a magical book about a magical night.” He followed this with World Serious: One San Francisco Giants Fan’s 2012 Pilgrimage.
On which eyes must be fixed by all,
that orb which provides the game with half its name,
held by the defense as in no other team game.
Of materials simple or mixed:
spherical rock or cowhide and stitches,
bundle of yarn, rolled up sock,
no matter of regulation or meeting specifications:
to be held and caressed, tossed, hurled, thrown and caught nonetheless.
The object of pulverization by the offense
and of possession by the defense,
of dreams held in small hands under covers at bedtime
of desire caught fair or foul by fans in stands during game time.
Scuffed scratched or dirtied,
taken out of play in the majors,
hide half off, still of use in the sandlots.
At the same time its condition is not important at all while its importance is all,
the ball.
For Phil’s reflections on the base, check out his poem from last fall.