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Yankees 11, Athletics 0

by Stephen Jones

Domingo Germán was in trouble,
His baseball life on the bubble.
His last two outings had been
ERs of 8 and 10,
The tabloids were blaring in his ears
“Off with his head!” and other smears,
And frankly, he didn’t know if and when
He’d be on the mound again.

But this all changed on a Wednesday night
When, in Oakland, he got it right
With a curveball that was unhittable
And a demeanor that was unflappable.
The result: a perfect game, number
Twenty-four in baseball’s history-ledger.

 

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Observation So Far

by Stephen Jones

The American League East
Is a self-eating beast
With no team below .500.
And the way these teams go,
As they consume one another,
It does make me wonder:

When the regular season
Is finally over
And the dust has settled,
It’s possible — it just may be —
That the last one on this list
Of baseball carnivores
May still get a wild card berth.

 

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May 17

by Stephen Jones

On this day, in 1939,
The first-ever-televised
Baseball game ocurred.
It was between Princeton
And Columbia, at
Columbia’s Bakers Field,
And Princeton won, 2-1.

 

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MLB Rule Changes

by Stephen Jones

First-ever pitch clock,
Elimination of the shift,
Pickoffs and “disengagement”
From the rubber
By the pitcher on the mound —
To name but a few of the new rules.

Sure I get it, MLB
Wants to attract new faces
And they figured it’s about time
To speed up the game …

But I still have trouble with the new bases.
They’re now the size of pizza boxes,
And I’m waiting for the moment,
That moment during a game,
When a hungry player on base
Tries to lift the lid.

 

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What I’ve Learned

by Stephen Jones

Now that the Wild Card
Smoke has cleared
And my team has just lost,
There’s one that I’ve learned,
Something in my brain
Like a Pythagorean theorem:

“In the postseason war
There is a reason for
Pitching, pitching, pitching.
No matter how gaudy
Your at-bats have become,
There is a reason
You’ll always be undone:
Pitching, pitching, pitching.”