Reviving the Art of Baseball Doggerel
“Where you gonna go?” — Reds President Phil Castellini on Opening Day, commenting on fans’ discontent with the Reds’ lack of success
Where else might Reds fans go?
Pocatello, Idaho
Acapulco, Mexico
Amarillo or The Alamo
A baseball town like San Diego
Fresno, Buffalo, Reno, Cabo
How ’bout Tokyo or Nagano?
Or swing north to jolly Oslo?
Many exciting destinations appealed
‘Cause they sure stayed away from Great American Field.
To the 700 home run goup
We can add Pujols with a whoop
After that crank
He joins Babe, Bonds and Hank
And our joy in the game we recoup.
Oklahoma wasn’t a state yet when I was born there
it was still largely part of the Wild West
And a part of the Wild West ethos
was the ability to hold your liquor
I showed that ability early on,
and I always thought it helped my ballplaying,
relaxing me, and allowing me
to the lines and alleys at Forbes Field,
piling up those doubles and triples;
one season I gave up the booze
and couldn’t hit worth a damn,
so I resumed drinking on the manager’s orders
Of course,
such didn’t help my life after baseball
So long Roberto Clemente
you have joined the immortals
who’ve been bodysnatched
by the Bermuda Triangle
When your plane went down
it forced tears out of grown men
all over the hemisphere
Al Oliver and
even Willie Stargell cried
You had a quiet
pissed-off pride
that made your countrymen
look up to you
even if you weren’t
taller than they are
No matter how many times
Manny Sanguillen
dove for your body
the sun kept going down
on his inability to find it
I just hope those Martians realize
they are claiming the rights to
far and away the greatest rightfielder
of all time
Copyright Tom Clark. From Fan Poems (1976).
Professor Taft was correct to advise me
to choose baseball as my career:
I spent the rest of my life in the game
as a player, player-manager, and manager,
and had success in all three positions
I only wish that Lady Bee had followed through
on allowing me first chance to buy the Cardinals,
instead of selling it to a cast of thousands of locals
(I was a silent partner in a minor-league team later,
but that’s not comparable to owning a big-league team)
While every position in baseball is stressful,
I think that being an owner would have been less so
than being a manager and dealing with the Babe and others
(the Babe did come around eventually,
to the extent possible for him)
One final note:
I understand Mr. Mays professes not to know
why I hated him, almost alone among all my players
You know I was a lawyer,
so I’m not about to make any allegations
that certainly can’t be proved at this late date,
and maybe couldn’t have been proved even back then
Suffice it say
Mr. Mays knows full well the reason for my feelings,
and he knows he will one day have to answer for what he did
