Reviving the Art of Baseball Doggerel
The fans in Cincinnati
Have been driven somewhat batty
By a ball club bound for doom.
Then hurlers Greene and Warren
Achieved a feat so rare and foreign
Finally cutting through the gloom.
Holding Pirate batters hitless
For eight innings, said one witness,
Appeared to seal a Redlegs win
But in a twist of fate so wicked
A fielder’s choice was committed
And they lost a no-hit gem.
I’m proud of my major-league career,
though some will denigrate it
because I pitched through the war
I’m proud of resurrecting the eephus pitch
(I thought I had invented it,
but I understand historians have found
someone who threw it before I was born)
But what I’m most proud of is my part
in the defeat of Murphy’s Guild in ’46:
I spoke out against the strike,
and the proposed union went down to defeat
by The Baseball Project
I was a player, manager, and umpire,
the only one to do that in League history,
and that eventually got me in the Hall of Fame,
but of course there’s only one thing everyone wants to know about
A few weeks before the Merkle incident
there was a similar scenario in a Cubs-Pirates game
I told Evers to go home, the game was over,
and wrote up the incident in the game report to President Pulliam
Many have criticized me through the years
for calling Merkle out on a technicality
for what was a common practice at the time,
but we actually called him out
because McGinnity interfered on the play,
which is hardly a technicality
And if I were consumed with technicalities
I could have ruled the game a forfeit to the Cubs
because the Giants couldn’t clear the field
I made what I think is the right decision:
calling the game a tie ended by darkness
First President Pulliam, and then the League Board,
upheld the decision,
and you know the rest of the story
Game 63. Brewers 7, Pirates 4
It’s a tight ballgame
Then Bucs can’t find the strike zone
And gift us 3 runs.
Game 64. Brewers 7, Pirates 4
Crew down 4 – nothing
Then put up 5 in the 4th
To put Pirates down.
Game 65. Brewers 5, Pirates 2
Winning continues
Crew sweep the Bucs outta town
Now back to the Reds.
The Brewer Haiku-er documents every Brewer game of the season in haiku on Twitter. Other Twitter haiku mavens are @MarinerBasho, @dodgershaiku1, @CardinalHaiku, and @TheCubsinHaiku. Follow them all and give ’em some high-five-seven-fives.