Reviving the Art of Baseball Doggerel
Between now and then
Suspended in time
Before the first pitch
A gnawing itch
A nervous tic
Between toss and take
Throw and swing
Stand Mr. and Mrs. History
Waiting to declare
Victory or defeat
Win or loss
Destiny vs. legacy
Giants or Dodgers
Batter up, ye immortals!
Shades of Stu Miller
Candlestick wind
Rippling hope and doubt
Both Scherzer and Wood
Toe to toe
Arm to arm
Right to left
Like Ali-Frazier
Foreman-Ali
A knockout blow
Blowin’ in the wind
Scherzo sonata
Longoria’s aria
Echo of Game 162
Heroes sung and unsung
Singing alive alive oh
One to nothing
This one’s for you
Willie and the vets
Saved by Doval
Cool as a dove
Giants win
Dodgers lose
Lux chapfallen
Freeze-frame it
It’s a wrap
When you paint your masterpiece
Monsieur Gauguin Webb
We will be in Thrall
Utah or parts unknown
As well as in Awe
Wowed by the sweep
Of your slider
Biting off batter’s swings
Showing that swagger
Shades of Lincecum
And his immortal
F*ck yeah
To the world
And to the Kingdom of Doubt
Strutting off the mound
En route to Victoryland
You know why someone gets the nickname Gabby
And you can probably guess why someone
gets the nickname Old Tomato Face
(hint: Chicago during Prohibition, and after)
I know injuries are a part of the game,
but we would have won back-to-back Series
if I had been healthy in ’29
and Hornsby had been healthy in ’30
You know I was behind the plate
when Ruth allegedly called his shot;
he pointed to our bench with two fingers
(both teams had really been riding each other),
saying that was only two strikes, he had one left
You know about the famous homer in ’38,
but you may not know I got called on the carpet
for having my picture taken with Al Capone
after I had given him an autograph
What was I supposed to do, refuse his request?
The oracles erred:
Not-so-great expectations
“Suhwwiinng and a miss”
(Cue Kuiper)
It’s a year of the Yaz
And razzmatazz
A Wade into wonder
Hitting in the pinch
Going for the clinch
They might be Giants
Indeed they are
Homer-ic team-sters
An arc of anonymity
Pining for posterity:
LaStella oh so stellar
Longo launching long ones
Into Baseball’s Starry Night
Posey, Belt, and Crawford
Renascence Men
Solano Flores Bryant
Rogers Disco McGee
Watson Wood Webb
Gausman Casali Garcia
Duggar Cueto Slater
Dickerson Doval Dubón
Littell Leone Quintana
And Kazmir redux!
On and on
Names forgotten?
No matter.
A roster
For Gabe Kapler
O captain our captain
Anonymous
Synonymous
With eponymous
Giants
Ever and anon.
Twenty
Twenty-one
Fun salute.
Paul Kocak is the author of Baseball’s Starry Night and World Serious, as well as the poetry collections Rounding Third and Tipp Hill Litanies.