Reviving the Art of Baseball Doggerel
Writing poetry gave me a different satisfaction
than what playing baseball provided me
The biggest difference, interestingly enough,
was that, the lower the stakes,
the more power the critics had:
no amount of their vitriol
could take a save away from me
or change any game’s result,
unlike in poetry
Eager to get to the ballfield
in the morning
to play
baseball, what I lived for
1964,
I followed the Major League scores,
batting averages, and standings;
the rest of the world no more
to me then
than a nightly news show
like Vietnam helicopter
womp womp,
machine gun rat-tat-tat;
I fed on
daily box scores in the newspaper
each breakfast
and left the ballfield only
to return home
for a meal
and on days it rained
I read books about baseball…
A guy my uncle knew, who
played for the local high school, had
played two years with the NY Yankees.
I remember rounding third once as if
all of America’s promise rode on my legs
There was a big commotion,
catcher, pitcher, gloves and a ball
were waiting for my pale legs.
I slid as slick as cupid’s bow
and scored lady luck’s run.
No kiss was so sweet.
Two hours before the baseball game,
Dock Ellis ate acid.
In his hotel party room,
Blacklight hallucinations.
Jimi Hendrix on the Hi-Fi,
“Electric Lady riffs.”
Whoops! Sports page don’t lie—
“Dock Ellis Pitching Tonight!”
What you gonna do, Dock? She asked.
Dock just smiled, took another hit.
The partying Pirate strolled to the mound.
“higher than a Georgia Pine.” (his words)
The hapless Padres were no match.
Dock’s lively fastball whistled.
90 miles per hour,
Rolling with flaming comet tails.
Sent with fire and brimstone,
Strikes exploding into his catcher’s mitt.
“Steee-rike”, called the Grim Reaper,
Ringing up the stunned batters.
Next came Dock’s curveball,
Floating like a Frisbee.
Ball spinning through a rainbow,
Surrealistic, sublime.
Baseball in slow motion now,
Frozen in its altered state.
Dock pounds the zone,
Sasquatch bellers, “Outta there!”
A gorilla strides to the plate,
Dock whiffs the phantom.
Dock pitching in psychedelia,
Spinning colors to the plate.
Now the strangest apparition:
Nixon behind the plate.
Jefferson Airplane in Dock’s head,
Nixon screams, “Strike three!”
“One pill makes you larger,”
“One pill makes you small.”
Bewildered Padres swung wildly,
Hitting that pill “not at all.”
Purple Haze, Sandoz,
Orange sunshine, Windowpane.
Dock levitates still higher,
High above the stadium.
Mind and body now separated,
Into the cosmic realm.
Dock wills the pitcher onward,
Below, the glassy hyaline.
He’s pitching effortlessly,
So far away from the blue planet.
“It’s all so beautiful,”
And still no hits for the Padres.
Dock’s throwing daggers, thunderbolts—
Like the enraged God.
He’s ever so wild,
Trippin’ so hard.
Where’s the plate?
Dock sees only a river of tie-dye color.
Nine free baserunners,
Eight walks, one hit batsman (who looked like Frankenstein).
Twice Dock loaded the bases,
Sorcerers on first, second, third.
Not even Don Juan would score,
Dock’s electric Kool-Aid too strong.
Padre hitters were getting scared,
That crazy look in Dock’s eyes.
Pitches from the third dimension,
Dock’s tell-tale dilated pupils.
Ninth inning coming,
Still no runs, no hits.
Dock descended from the celestial sphere,
Holding a baseball light, tiny.
Dock fired that last pitch,
A meteorite at light speed.
Through a cloudy vapor trail,
Last man out!
LSD no-hitter!
Dock gazed into the Infinite.
Jewels of the Heavens sparkled,
The Luna moon smiled.
“I pitched a fucking no-hitter!”
The Gods of baseball applauded.
Thus in 1970,
Another folk hero was born.
“What did you see on that last play?”
The confused sportswriters wanted to know.
Dock just smiled like a Cheshire cat,
“Man, you wouldn’t believe what I saw!”
The legend says Dock met Timothy Leary,
An autograph and baseball card for the acid guru.
Leary’s proclamation,
To day-trippers everywhere:
Behold Dock Ellis:
First pitcher to “turn on, tune in, and drop out!”
Nothing
can equally
cause
intense elation
or
dismal disappointment
as that
hard hit ground ball
to the middle left
of the infield
with a runner on first
and only one
out.
R. Gerry Fabian is the author of three novels and four books of poetry. His latest book of poems, Ball On The Mound, is a collection of original baseball poems, available at Amazon.