Reviving the Art of Baseball Doggerel
Have you ever thrown a ball 100 miles an hour?
Everything hurts,
even your ass hurts.
I see pictures of my face
and say,
“Holy shit”,
but that’s the strain you feel
when you throw.
People say,
“Man he’s an ass-hole.”
Could be,
depends on if you
pissed me off
or not.
On this day, in 1939,
The first-ever-televised
Baseball game ocurred.
It was between Princeton
And Columbia, at
Columbia’s Bakers Field,
And Princeton won, 2-1.
He was not
the best Negro League player
the Dodgers could have signed.
But he was the first
so he had to be better
than legendary.
Where did his calm come from
when he took the field
amidst a rain of insults
hurled like a pyroclastic flow?
How did he show the best
in men
while men showered him
with the worst?
How could he do it
one more day
let alone the next
and then the next?
Whatever it was
burned in him
with such intensity and
white hot heat that,
like Vulcan,
he forged impenetrable armor.
Baseball retired
Jackie Robinson’s 42
for all teams for all time.
The answer to life, the universe
and everything,
is it any wonder
it is the angle at which
sunlight and water
turn into rainbows?
Phillip has recently been published in Poeming Pigeon, and received an Honorable Mention in 2020 in the Oregon Poetry Association’s Contest for new poets. He lives in Beaverton, Ore., with his wife, who is also a poet.
As comedian George Carlin famously said,
“Baseball begins in the spring, the season of new life.
Football begins in the fall, when everything’s dying …
In football you wear a helmet.
In baseball you wear a cap …
Football has hitting … and unnecessary roughness.
Baseball has the sacrifice.”
So what did the Giants and Padres sacrifice
In Mexico City’s elevation?
The beauty of a 1-0 shutout;
So many flailing arms in spent bullpens;
And a congested scorecard that seemed to replace
Baseball’s home runs with football’s touchdowns.
As the Giants’ announcer Jon Miller said repeatedly,
“¡Adiós pelota! ¡Adiós pelota! ¡Adiós pelota!”
Dr. Oza is a management consultant and facilitates the interpersonal dynamics of MBAs at Stanford University. His recently completed Double Play, written in Stanford’s novel-writing program, will be published in 2024 by Chicago’s Third World Press.
I am sitting at the bar watching
the Braves versus Phillies game.
Second inning.
The Braves have the bases loaded,
two outs and their seventh batter,
a rookie catcher, at bat.
From out of nowhere,
a woman sits next to me.
“Can you buy me a drink?’
The Phillies’ pitcher throws
a slider, down and away.
Ball one.
I use semantics on the woman.
“If you mean do I have the money
to buy you a drink,
then yes, I do.”
The next pitch is high and tight.
The kid catcher steps out of the box
and then reenters crowding the plate.
“Okay.” The woman agrees.
“Will you buy me a drink?”
Again, I use semantic in hopes
of ending this dialogue.
“If you mean, is there a chance
that in the future
I may purchase a drink for you,
the odds are 75 – 25 in your favor,
if only to end this conversation.”
The next pitch is an outside fastball
and the kid fouls it off.
Count 2-1.
That was your pitch, I think silently.
The woman is unyielding.
“I like baseball, and I would
like you to buy me a drink.”
Count 2-2
I know the pitcher is going to throw a curve.
Hang it. I try to jinx the pitcher.
He throws a sharp breaking curve
but to my astonishment and surprise,
the kid catcher stays on the pitch
and drives it into the right center gap
for a bases-clearing double.
“Do I get my drink now?”
I decide to put an end to this
annoying invasion of privacy.
“Tell me who the greatest pitcher
of all time is and I’ll buy you a drink.”
She smiles.
“Denton True Young.”