Reviving the Art of Baseball Doggerel
All I know is that some other people made it big
Some other people got paid, some got famous
but all I know is I wanna play, everyday
I don’t care to compare to the Babe or Speaker
I just want to raise the crowd when I come to bat,
I want to quiet the crowd when I make a catch
I want to be all of that for a quarter dollar a day.
A hundred and sixty-two battles during the season
Fought, won or lost on stadium fields of green and dirt —
And where is my team now? It had so much promise
Last April, when everything was new and young,
And then it went to war. The summer-long campaign
Was rough, more games were lost than won —
And now it’s October. The stadium seats are empty,
The crack of the bat is gone, and only the ghosts of
“What if” whisper in the empty tunnels and locker room.
All baseball season
night after night
I listen
And here’s the pitch . . .
Who wins or loses
no longer matters
despite what
The most rabid
fans and sports
radio hosts tell me.
I try to pay
attention to
the spaciousness:
The way
each moment opens
green
Like the smell
of freshly
mowed grass.
Often, I get lost
remembering who taught
me how to love the game:
Backyard catch
sandlot games
grandfather, father
uncles, cousins,
friends, teammates.
We know the best
hitters fail more often
than they succeed
At their craft.
I, as a listener,
am no different
On deck is . . .
I look ahead to
warmer weather,
an upcoming game
When I will be
on vacation,
the World Series.
The crack of the bat
always returns me
to the beauty
Of players in motion,
of fans living and dying,
and the open field of green.
Tom lives in Connecticut, the battleground state split between Red Sox and Yankee fans. His baseball short stories have appeared in The Feminine Collective and Turnstyle: The SABR Journal of Baseball Arts.
Highest stakes,
Sleepy mistakes,
Fan heartaches.
The baseball got wet in morning
dew
and became slimy
and hard to throw
and if the ball got lost in the high grass
of the pasture behind the backstop, among
the snakes and cow flops, everyone
had to look for it — or else.
Old bats worn and cracked burned
our hands if the ball hit on the trademark.
Our games were fierce and
often bloody —
we played to win because
some of us liked winning
and because some of us needed to win
more than some others did.