Category: NL Central

by Franklin Pierce Adams

The burden of hard hitting. Slug away
.   Like Honus Wagner or like Tyrus Cobb.
Else fandom shouteth: “Who said you could play?
.   Back to the jasper league, you minor slob!”
.   Swat, hit, connect, line out, get on the job.
Else you shall feel the brunt of fandom’s ire
.   Biff, bang it, clout it, hit it on the knob –
This is the end of every fan’s desire.

The burden of good pitching. Curved or straight.
.   Or in or out, or haply up or down,
To puzzle him that standeth by the plate,
.   To lessen, so to speak, his bat-renown:
.   Like Christy Mathewson or Miner Brown,
So pitch that every man can but admire
.   And offer you the freedom of the town –
This is the end of every fan’s desire.

The burden of loud cheering. O the sounds!
.   The tumult and the shouting from the throats
Of forty thousand at the Polo Grounds
.   Sitting, ay, standing sans their hats and coats.
.   A mighty cheer that possibly denotes
That Cub or Pirate fat is in the fire;
.   Or, as H. James would say, We’ve got their goats –
This is the end of every fan’s desire.

The burden of a pennant. O the hope,
.   The tenuous hope, the hope that’s half a fear,
The lengthy season and the boundless dope,
.   And the bromidic, “Wait until next year.”
.   O dread disgrace of trailing in the rear,
O Piece of Bunting, flying high and higher
.   That next October it shall flutter here:
This is the end of every fan’s desire.

ENVOY

Ah, Fans, let not the Quarry but the Chase
.   Be that to which most fondly we aspire!
For us not Stake, but Game; not Goal, but Race –
.   THIS is the end of every fan’s desire.