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Saving His Zambrano for a Sunday!

A Calypso meditation on playoff loss in three verses and a pliable chorus
By Lou Carlozo

Now manager Lou, he had things to do
(saving his Zambrano for a Sunday!)
Pulled out his hot pitcher, put in a belly-itcher
(saving his Zambrano for a Sunday!)
Now it’s fitting the reliever’s name was Marmol
(saving his Zambrano for a Sunday!)
‘Cause in the playoff pressure-cooker, melt like stove-top car’mel
(saving his Zambrano for a Sunday!)

But Lou’s saving … saving …
Saving his Zambrano for a Sunday!
Get out of the room with your gloom and doom
‘Cause he’s saving his Zambrano for a Sunday!

When the bases are loaded and there’s only out
(saving his Zambrano for a Sunday!)
You don’t swing, DeRosa, with a 3-and-1 count
(saving his Zambrano for a Sunday!)
You kill a big rally with a wimpy double play
(saving his Zambrano for a Sunday!)
And turn Wrigley Field into Confines of Dismay
(saving his Zambrano for a Sunday!)

But we’re saving … saving …
Saving our Zambrano for a Sunday!
When the Cubs come back, we’ll be on the attack
And we’re saving our Zambrano for a Sunday!

But the Cubs got swept and the fans they wept
(saving his Zambrano for a Sunday!)
Bartman’s home laughing and Goat’s curse is kept
(saving his Zambrano for a Sunday!)
Now Carlos runs my errands at the Home Depot
(cause we saved up our Zambrano for a Sunday!)
‘Cause with Wrigley closed, he’s got no place to go
(saving his Zambrano for a Sunday!)

And he’s saving … saving …
Saving his Zambrano for a Sunday!
It’s Cub fan’s zen …
Til next millennium
Saving his Zambrano for a Sunday!
And we’re saving … saving …
Saving our Zambrano for a Sunday!
Saving our Zambrano for that rainy day …
But in baseball when it rains … you just don’t play…

Posted 10/10/07

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Cross-Town Rivalry

by Sheila Bernstein

A tattered scorecard,
A pennant,
An autograph or two.
For most kids that will do as a souvenir from a day at the game.
A double-header; what could be better?

This kid, two to three times the age of your average player, never had a
prayer that she would return home with such a treasure.

It was a foul ball up into the stands.
Grown men ducked, children raised their mitts aloft, but it was I who caught
the ball.

The crowd gave a cheer!

And this kid went home with her souvenir in her purse, and the Cubs beat the
Sox, so what could be worse?

The South against the North.
Oh, how that ball did soar
At this modern-day civil war.

Posted 10/9/07 

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After Tinker and Evers…

By Stuart Shea

It’s been 100 years,
Since we’ve had the last dance.
After Tinker and Evers,
We had no Chance.

Gabby was silent and
Sosa splintered, corked like his bat,
Imagine that!
Santo, Jenkins, Billy, Ernie, Hack…
No series, no deposit, no return,
No going back.
100 years.
Even the great Cavaretta caved before the “curse.”
All the tears,
All the bad to worse, even before Michael Wuertz.

It is no curse of goat, owner, or drug,
No virus or flu bug,
But rather an indictment of all things Chicago,
Our own luck, our character, our fate.
Our go-go no-show ego.

47th St. to downtown,
North side to Oak Park,
Chatham, Maxwell Street.
(Remember that?)
Our culture is picked, chopped, and reaped by those in London, New York, Ibiza, Amsterdam, just like at each harvest time, when our baseball hopes disappear.

Our writers ignored, ripped off, marginalized, and shunted,
House music stolen and bastardized,
The blues Anglicized,
Our schools vandalized,
Lottery money wasted and schools go begging,
Our leaders prostituted before mobsters, construction racketeers, the hospitality industry.
We are the breadbasket of America, yet many go hungry.

Tonight, all we ask is a damn World Series.
All we want is a fair shake from God,
From baseball.
That’s all.
But the fiefdom of the game has screwed us.

Peter Ueberroth,
Commissioner en route to Presidency,
Moved our third home game to San Diego in ’84,
Licking the feet of NBC, the television robber barons.

Well, I haven’t forgotten, you lying scoundrel.
Bully. King of Creeps, factotum for self-anointed kings.
With your ambition for greater things,
Big business cudgel,
Apologist.
Forced lights on us in ’88, with
Blackmail to fans and bribes to local government,

And we were so innocent back then
To think it was just a simple question of right or wrong.
Not for long.
As not to see that it was no longer our game,
If indeed if it ever was.
Free market for owners, free agency for players,
Keep moving, folks,
Nothing free here.

So our heroes, our bought and rented men
Play for glory, applause, salary,
Because it’s their job.

Sure, they wear Chicago hats,
But they don’t live here.
Not like in the old days when players would drink with fans at Ray’s,
Dick Selma buying the house a round,
Ron Santo living off Berteau Avenue,
Glenn Beckert, too,
Ernie and Billy commuting from Chatham.
Even Dave Martinez lived in Roselle.
So what the hell.

Once again, our resources—our attention, our time, our intention, our good will, our money—go out of town.

We root, root, root not for our heroes,
But for ourselves, our egos,
Our own meager sense of worth,
Which we think will be conferred onto us by
Rich guys in pinstripe suits
Beating other rich guys in pinstripe suits,
Just like at the Stock Exchange.

Posted 10/8/07. 

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Mister Cub’s Autograph

by Sid Yiddish

Middle of the eighth,
Dad’s hands are wet, but not from sweat
He’s just returned from the toilet near the souvenir stand in the middle of the inside of Wrigley Field, with a wet scorecard and he says, “Guess who I met in the bathroom, son? Your hero, Ernie Banks!”

Me, eyes wide open, gulping breath and asking, “Really?”

Sure enough, Dad shows me the program with Ernie Bank’s signature, that looks a little like Dad’s own handwriting, but then again as a young boy aged seven-and-a-half in that late summer of 1969 when the Chicago Cubs were in first place, you wouldn’t seem to have cared where it came from, just as long as you could impress your playmates that you lucked out in getting Mister Cub’s autograph and you’d be the envy of every kid on the block.

As the years passed and I grew up, Dad’s story changed again and again; different inning and different Wrigley Field bathroom locale, but always Mister Cub’s autograph was there

Never lie to a child, I’ve heard some say, but my Dad did, so do I blame him that he wanted to please me, after I got crushed in the great onslaught of autograph seekers near the Cubs dugout and came back to the box seats with the saddest of faces?

Yes, I do.

He could have at least stuck to the same story.

Posted 10/1/07.