Reviving the Art of Baseball Doggerel
Does a Baby Bull have Buddha nature?
Not even the wind,
fluttering prayer flags
in the abandoned grandstand,
can say.
Peanuts and popcorn
in your begging bowl,
a pinecone nestled snugly
in your glove.
How many times being hit by a pitch
until you gained enlightenment?
379 homers? Or
379 drops of rain
pelting a temple bell?
Photo by the author’s sister.
About the time I got my first-baseman’s mitt
I heard that Dizzy Dean was sacked
Because he made a dirty comment
Over the air. Camera zoomed and locked
On a young couple kissing, something slipped
With Dizzy, who then made the call:
“He kisses her on every strike,
And she kisses him on the balls.”
In a century banked with guilt and doubt
Sometimes the telling moments come
As inadvertently as Dizzy’s joke,
Like Hitler’s code before Coventry was bombed,
Or Valéry’s remark about Descartes:
“I sometimes think, therefore sometimes I am.”
Wyatt Prunty is the author of nine collections of poetry and served as editor of the essay collection Sewanee Writers on Writing. He has taught at The Johns Hopkins Writing Seminars, Louisiana State University, Washington and Lee University, and Sewanee, where he is presently the Ogden P. Carlton Professor of Literature. He is a recipient of Guggenheim, Rockefeller, Johns Hopkins and Brown Foundation fellowships.
Well,
you wait for a strike.
Then
you knock the
shit
out of it.
It might be …
In 1945, Harry, the great-grandpater,
Told beer-fueled stories about Cardinals like Stan the Man.
It could be …
Harry’s son, Skip, made calls straighter,
As straight as a Braves arrow off the bat of Hammerin’ Hank.
It is!
Skip’s boy is a charismatic Chip off the old block.
First with Gramps and the Cubs; then Dad and the Braves; and now the Cards.
A home run!!
In 2024, Chris joined the Caray MLB broadcast stock.
A’s fans hear echoes in this descendant of baseball’s royal family of bards.
Holy Cow!!!
These joyful announcers hit an inside-the-ballpark family-four-bagger.
Calling games for the A’s, Cards, Cubs, Braves, and Sox with swagger.
Take Me Out to the Ball Game!!!!
Four generations talkin’ baseball lore.
Harry Christopher Caray: I, II, III, IV.
What’s he doing out there
on the pitching mound?
He looks more like a bear
than a throwing hound.
Position players
say their prayers,
when the manager
says, “You’re my reliever.”
Babe Ruth began his career
with a pitch that hitters feared.
But when he traded in his ball,
His bat made him Bunyanesque tall.
When Brandon Crawford pitched
Batters were not bewitched.
He had an astronomical 27.00 ERA.
So what, he wasn’t even batting his weight.
Some say Triple Crown threat Shohei never shoulda
Pitched, even if imitate Cy Young he coulda.
But over a 162-game season,
Let’s have some fun with batting/pitching treason.
Dr. Oza’s novel Double Play sits at the intersection of Ernie Banks’ Cubs, the Negro Leagues, riding the El, wrongful convictions, immigration and friendship. It will be published in October 2024 by Chicago’s Third World Press.