Reviving the Art of Baseball Doggerel
So many different subscription services,
Left, right and center,
As I try to follow my team this year.
Baseball’s become more complicated,
And more expensive, too,
Even for someone relaxing at home.
There’s a big problem in all of this.
How is it, now, that America’s pastime—
Its looked-forward-to leisure of summer—
Has evolved like an apocalyptic survivor,
Transformed into MLB’s frenetic cash cow?
(for Roy Halladay, 1977-2017)
how are you doing
wherever you ended up?
do you still fly above as your son follows in your footsteps
waving at him every so often?
did you ever see your own plaque at our mecca?
maybe you do, but then again
we as fans project our hopes and hard-owned money onto our faves
is it any surprise when we discover they have a daredevil on their shoulder instead of a chip
to motivate their game?
Ollie Shane is the author of the chapbook I Do It So It Feels Like Hell (Bottlecap Press, 2022) and the forthcoming full-length notes from the void (Wild Ink Publishing, 2025). He is also a second-generation Philadelphia Phillies fan all thanks to his beloved grandfather, Vince Tassoni.
Unlike Yogi later, I did say everything I said
And while a couple of the details related
might not have been entirely accurate, the substance was
I don’t mind being remembered as a storyteller,
but I sometimes wonder if that was why
the writers never elected me to the Hall of Fame:
because I was more entertaining than they were,
they dismissed how great a pitcher I was
“Two hands!” cried my dad,
A dude who grew up
When mitts were as flat as Biblical Earth.
Even a pitcher named Mordecai Brown
Used two hands, and his nickname
Was Three Fingers.
Pop ups, grounders, line drives, Baltimore
. Chops—
Did not matter—two hands
Was my old man’s mantra.
I had a spanking new Rawlings,
Had a pocket you could pull out
A rabbit but not one over
My old man. The mitt
Was stiff as a wedding
Invitation. Beat it and beat it
I did and steeped that stubborn hide
With saddle soap, butter, Mazola,
Vicks Vapo Rub, 30 weight,
Anything lubey. Over and over
I pounded it with a rubber mallet,
Ran it over and over with my bike
Until that leather went limp
As overcooked spaghetti,
So soft you could use it for a pillow,
Which I did,
Firm enough to snag a rope,
Which I did,
A leaping stab in centerfield,
But I threw it to the wrong cutoff.
“Use your brain!” my dad yelled,
“Both sides of it!”
Who was it,
What savvy pundit
Or, more likely,
What marketing employee
Decided to layer
All the All-Star players
In red and blue clown
Suits, or as actors in “Tron”?