Reviving the Art of Baseball Doggerel
Baseball is the hurrah game of the republic!
That’s beautiful: the hurrah game!
well—it’s our game:
that’s the chief fact in connection with it:
America’s game:
has the snap, go, fling, of the American atmosphere
belongs as much to our institutions,
fits into them as significantly,
as our constitutions, laws:
is just as important
in the sum total of our historic life.
You’ve folded, wild cards
Go lay down, underdogs
We now have the battle of monoliths
Monitor vs. Merrimack
Hulk vs. Red Hulk
Kong vs. Godzilla, Part XXVI
The broadcast execs are happy
Numbers save their bacon
Talking heads can finally stop
Pretending they like visiting Milwaukee
They now can cover
The only coasts that matter
The long (ha!) drought is over
For NY and LA
And the rest of us can tune in
To the NBA
Mets @ Brewers, Final Score: 4-2. METS WIN!
I’m only a pagan come October, when the
air cools and the leaves burn bright
and expectation fills the air like
incense spooling from marble altars,
and prayers like candles light the night.
And maybe Odin, after losing his bout
with Christ, figured an American pastime
. would have to do, and Zeus
for all his thunder, settled for blessing bats,
heeding the prayers of grown men
. who long after boyhood still wear
their baseball caps.
Maybe last night, one of them listened,
and in the bottom of the ninth worked
a little magic—and I, agnostic at best, atheist at worst
. summoned up the faith
to ask for a blast over the right field fence.
Ryan Diaz is a writer and poet from Queens, NY. He is the author of three poetry books — For Those Wandering Along the Way (Wipf & Stock), Skipping Stones (Wipf & Stock) and The Wounded Monk — a chapbook of short poetry, Like Falling Leaves, and a novel, Abuelo: A Memoir. He lives in Queens, NY, with his wife Janiece and his son Damian, and is a lifelong (self-loathing) New York Mets fan.
Had the Dodgers
Lost just one more game,
This sub-600 season woulda been lame.
The winning percentage
Of most every other team,
Was surely a parity-lover’s dream.
Leaving aside the Angels, Marlins, Rockies,
And the historically bad White Sox,
All the other ballclubs had their shots.
Within sniffing distance of the wild card,
A couple of wins here and there
Woulda given your team a playoff share.
If the Mets and Tigers coulda
Advanced to the second round,
My Cubbies, too, shoulda stuck around.
Yeah, there may be MLB pair-a-tee,
But as Steve Goodman’s Dying Cubs Fans know
They still play the blues in Chi-ca-go.
Dr. Oza’s novel Double Play on the Red Line 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.
You lose a game,
And it hurts
Like a paper cut.
You don’t make the playoffs,
And it hurts
Like a broken nose.
You lose the last game of the World Series,
And it hurts
Like a Type III fracture.
You lose one hundred and twenty games,
And it still don’t hurt
Like having your heart ripped out.
Becuz’ in your world,
The hurt will heal
As you wait until next year.
Like a rainbow thief, the A’s owner
Has forever stolen the Green & Gold
And left only the Blues.
He’s stealing away,
Up Highway 80 to sAcrAmento,
Chasing a pot o’ gold to lAs vegAs.
The letter “A” has been ripped out of
The O*kl*nd *lph*bet.
And now he*rt sounds like hurt.
A broken old man sits crying
In the desolate Coliseum
With a cancer of the heart.
Becuz’ in his world,
The hurt will metastasize
On every Opening Day.
Dr. Oza’s novel Double Play on the Red Line 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.