by Hilary Barta
Chicago’s the winning-est club
Both leagues they continue to drub
Though ’tis strange, I don’t cheer
Because danger is near
Aye, COVID-19, there’s the rub.
The Wrigleyville Monkey’s Paw
Fiction by James Finn Garner
A stranger approaches a Cub fan in a bar, carrying a strange relic….
I was sitting at the bar at Yak-zie’s on Clark. The season hadn’t started yet, so the place was nice and peaceful, full of locals. The expectations, the intensity, the slobbery emotions of the regular season were still off in the distance, so I was soaking in the serenity of things that currently were and the things that could in the future be. In short, I enjoyed being near my favorite ballpark with a cold one in my hand, without having to share the place with hordes of drunk account managers from River North and Schaumburg.
I was just about to ask for my tab when a certain smell stung the air, a smell like the floor of the Grand Avenue Red Line station. I turned to my left and was confronted with a haunted face staring intently at me. The man wasn’t a bum, but he wasn’t quite normal either. His scraggly beard was dusted with gray, and his full head of hair was slicked back. His eyes were brown and lit from the inside, surrounded by cracked circles of skin like pale dried mud.
Hey, I said.
You need to do me a favor, he said.
Sure I do.
You do.
Well, you have such a sweet way of asking someone, I said, how could anyone refuse?
Don’t laugh. This isn’t a joke.
Fair Game?
by Elliott Harris
Once again, I must report
COVID-19 is like Bob Gibson
Pitching for the Cardinals in ‘68
But with better run support.
A weekend Cubs-Cards confrontation
Has been sidelined by the virus
For some reason, big-league baseball
Believes it somehow can avoid contagion.
There’s one category of which I know
That the Cards lead all of MLB
Truly noteworthy: consecutive games
Cancelled — they have 13 in a row.
That number could change any day now
While Commissioner Rob Manfred
And friends try to figure out
A way to get through this somehow.
It’s enough to make a Cards fan holler
While other teams play contests
In empty stadiums while they can,
As owners pursue TV’s postseason dollar.
I have this terrible sense of dread
That baseball will continue to play on
In its battle with the coronavirus
And will not halt until a player is dead.
Elliott Harris is a lifelong baseball fan old enough to have put 1950s baseball cards in the spokes of his bicycle. Among other things, he was the “Quicks Hits” columnist for the Chicago Sun-Times until 2011, when he was placed on the involuntarily retired list.
Opening Yay!
by Hilary Barta
Kyle Hendricks pulled off quite a feat
Without one darn fan in a seat
No walks and nine fanned!
(All cheering was canned)
Three hits, and the game was complete!
Chicago Baseball A to Z (Part 1)
By Jim Siergey and James Finn Garner
A is for Anderson
A youthful Sox great
He loves flipping bats
Which other teams hate.
B is for Beer
The beverage of summer
Also for Bryant,
Bote and Bummer.
C is for Colomé
Sox closer with flair.
His Cub counterpart’s Kimbrel
With his elbow in air.
D is for Dylan
The White Sox have two.
Will Covey and Cease
Give visitors the “Homesick Blues”?
E is for Epstein
Who helped lift the curse.
He eyeballs the players
As well as the purse.
F is for Fans
(Don’t get caught in between ’em)
More passionate diehards?
You ain’t never seen ’em!
G is for Grandpa
The new boss in town.
Show some hustle out there
And stay off of his lawn!
H is for Harry
“Hey, lemme hear ya!”
Were he still around,
Sure bet he would beer ya.