The Original Williams Shift
by the Village Elliott
For Cy Williams (career 1912-1930)
Baseball’s first famous Defensive Shift
Named for “Williams” set fielders adrift.
Though named for Williams guy,
It’s not Ted, rather Cy,
The Phillies’ slugger whom history’s stiffed.
Colon Ranger
by Michael X. Ferraro
Conjuring his Inner Say Hey Kid,
Bartolo decamps from the mound.
Sprinting so fast he loses his lid,
He covers a whole lot of ground,
And hauls in Galvis’ base-hit bid–
Yet another Colon foe clowned.
For a clip of Colon’s play, click here.
Michael’s hilarious football book Circus Catch is available from Amazon now.
Philly’s High-Cheesesteak
by Stephen Jones
Phillies’ fan faithful usually
Don’t have much to cheer about,
But thank you Vince Velasquez
For 16 Ks and a shutout.
(Philly blanked San Diego —
It was 3-0 —
And turned the Padres nosh
Into a hero.)
The Big Piece
By C.S. Carr
Infielders play pepper sharpening reflexes.
Chooch works with the kid from Panama with a rocket for an arm.
Coach leans against the backstop staring into the gage,
shouts,
shorten the stance
lower the hands
move closer to the plate.
Waits for that thwack from his bat
Like the crack of a pick striking a vein of coal.
The Big Piece lines
balls fired from the wheels of the batting machine
puncture the netting.
Gone are J-Roll, Chase,
the Flying Hawaiian, Cliff,
Cole, Doc, and Pat the Bat–
World Champions.
Phils perennial migration to Clearwater,
.        it’s Spring Training.
The chatter in camp is about manufacturing runs:
bases hits; moving runners; bringing guys home
using an assortment of prospects–
Rule 5’s, free agents, draft picks,
couple of no-hit speed merchants
and a bunch of Punch-and-Judy hitters.
The calendar flips to the dog days of June, it gets hotter and the road trips get longer,
can the young arms hold up?
Lots of unknowns before they head north.
It looks like the Big Piece can’t hit
for power anymore.