Reviving the Art of Baseball Doggerel
Did Vida Blue
ever pitch to
Dick Brown?
Did Bill White
ever fight
with Bud Black?
Was Dallas Green
ever mean
to Tyler Houston?
Did Mike Trout
ever dine out
with Tim Salmon?
Did Martinez, Carmelo
ever have Mark Lemongello
for dessert?
I’ve seen Cobb and Ruth
roaming below
Shoeless Joe
DiMaggio
Goslin, Cochrane
and Schoolboy Rowe
Dizzy and Medwick
and Murderers Row
I’ve seen Gehrig and Greenberg
the Bomber, the Bull
The Kid and Jackie Robinson
and a house that was full
Jimmy Brown
and Bobby Layne
Old Lem Barney
and Night Train Lane
Yogi and Mickey
Gator and Cash
Don Wert’s single
Kaline’s mad dash
Lolich and Denny
Ozzie and Jake
Old Frank Feneck
at the All-Star break
Seen Marvin
Sing the anthem
Feliciano in blue
It changed the game
and America, too
Saw Horton nail Brock
Dock Ellis in shock
Saw Chuck Hughes fall
Where Butkus stood tall
Saw The Bird in his roost
Saw Gibby and Goose
Sparky and Rozey
Trammell and Lou
Mandela and Rosa
Little Stevie, too
Then Fick hit the roof
and the lights went out
And the ballpark crumbled
and the weeds did sprout
I watched as the diamond
Grew riven with trash
The basepaths and outfield
Scattered with ash
But the weeds were cut
and the field restored
And the heavens opened
and the rains, they poured
Navin Field
Our bond is true
Through the years
No matter the hue
I was lean
I was green
I grew rusty and blue
Like Harvey Kuenn
and Rod Carew
I am tall
I am frail
I am old
and I am grey
I am the flagpole
And I am all that remains
This poem first appeared in the blog for the Navin Field Grounds Crew.
Howie Kendrick just became the first
player in MLB history
to break up shutouts of seven runs
or more in two consecutive games,
but the Phillies still stink and so do
stats like this one, which may or may not
be true.
For Ned Garver (12/25/1925 – 2/26/2017)
Fourteen years Ned Garver pitched in Bigs,
“Hardest Luck” ever hurled in big leagues.
‘Fifty-One last-place Browns:
Twenty games won with clowns,
Greatest year of hard-luck pitching gigs.
Ned Garver’s big season came in 1951 with the woeful St. Louis Browns (52 – 102), as he posted a record of 20 – 12 (.625), winning 38.5% of the team’s victories. Garver thus became the only 20th century pitcher to win 20 for a team that lost 100 games. (Steve Carlton, amazingly, went 27 – 10 (.730) for the 1972 last-place Phillies (59-97), losing six games in a seasoned shortened at the beginning by a strike lasting 10 days. Carlton led the National League in wins, ERA and strikeouts, while recording a win in 45.7% of his team’s victories. The strike undoubtedly prevented Carlton from joining Garver as the second 20-game winner on a 100-loss last-place team.)