A Treatise on Baseball Names
By Bob Sheppard (1910-2010), longtime Yankees PA announcer
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There are certain names that go over well,
Like Pena, Ramos, Carrasquel,
With liquid sounds so panoramic.
And strangely, they all are Hispanic.
Aurelio, Hipolito, Cecilio, Domingo
Have a lovelier sound than American lingo.
What native name could I ever tell so
Musically, as Valdivielso?
And no native name could ever show us
The splendor of Salome Barojas.
Posted in memory 7/11/10
Playing Golf in Kearney on the Last Tuesday of the Last College Series at Rosenblatt
By Todd Herges
To stand on a crest
In the two o’clock shade
‘Neath the bough of an ever green cedar
On a mid-summer day
When the sky is so blue so full
Of nothing but promise
Of a gentle late-summertime breeze
And later a gentle night shower …
To look southward
And forward
And toward a great rift
Of a great river valley below
And see the rise of soft shoulders beyond …
Is to stand without feeling
Your feet or your height
Or your avoirdupois at all
And to think that right now
As the spring turns to fall
It’s good to be here in Nebraska.
Posted 7/4/10
With Love and Ancient Cautions: From a Wood Fan to a Strasburg Fan
By Joe Moag
Unto He!
Unto He, the new rookie,
He with an arm fit to hoist Zeus’ bolt,
Fit to slay our past; fit to redeem our degradations.
Unto He, our welcomed savior!
A reprieve from years of ill, from years of doubt,
From years of lowness.
Unto He, the Lifter!
Unto He, the Changer!
Unto He, the Future!
Unto He, Alleviator of this state
Of prolonged exile, of overdue vengeance,
Of our just and righteous payback!
Unto He we place this proof
That our faith, traveled across orphanage and dismissal,
Our Faith, that thing
Which steeled our resolve
To simply stay in the game long enough,
Has borne fruit! It has brought
Him, here, to Us.
No light as bright as this has ever shone, only to
Fall away in wreckage through the dimming of life’s cold onslaughts and hurly-burl!
Immortals don’t flinch, or suffer, or miss their mark – they shine!
Our wait itself is the toil and testament to the surety of this!
This Game and its Gods, who sit high and low,
Sworn sacred to the mischief in their souls
Could never be jealous enough
To make this foreseen future, this deserved fate,
Fall short.
Posted 6/27/10
No More Outs to Play (A Villanelle)
by Joe Pacheco
As per Edward Arlington Robinson
They have all moved away,
The stadium’s shut and still.
No more outs to play.
No one to shout hooray
Or feel late inning thrill,
They have all moved away.
No afternoon display
Of valor, strength and skill.
No more outs to play.
Nor high priced stars to pay
Or luxury box to fill,
They have all moved away.
As empty stands decay,
Grass shrouds the pitcher’s hill,
No more outs to play.
One last fireworks array
Will deliver final kill.
They have all moved away.
No more outs to play.
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A villanelle is a poetic form which entered English-language poetry in the 1800s from the imitation of French models. A villanelle has only two rhyme sounds. The first and third lines of the first stanza are rhyming refrains that alternate as the third line in each successive stanza and form a couplet at the close. A villanelle is 19 lines long, consisting of five tercets and one concluding quatrain. (Wikipedia)
Posted 4/23/2010
Southpaws on Parade
by Todd Herges
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Quick trips up are saved,
or so it is said,
for lefties who hit with good pow’r;
the finest of gems
scouts try hard to mine
are sinister live-armed hurlers.
Oh-nine is the year
these truths can be seen
on both of the teams still alive.
For while Pujols is great
and Vlad’s bat can’t wait
they stand in the box close to third;
while Lincecum’s crazed
and Beckett is made
They’re now taking showers at home.
The teams that are left
are those who chose best,
hitched wagons to maladroit men.
Howard, Hideki,
Damon and Utley,
on demand can take the ball yard;
Cliff Lee and C.C.,
Cole Hamels, Andy,
quite clearly show that they’ve got game.
So now we are left
to watch quite impressed
A southpaw-filled Classic on Fox.
(The lefthanders playing in the World Series this year are: pitchers Phil Coke, Damaso Marte, Andy Pettitte, CC Sabbathia, Antonio Bastardo, Scott Eyre, Cole Hamels, A.J. Happ, and Cliff Lee; hitters Robinson Cano, Johnny Damon, Brett Gardner, Eric Hinske, Hideki Matsui, Paul Bako, Greg Dobbs; Ryan Howard, Chase Utley, Raul Ibanez, Matt Stairs; plus switch hitters Melky Cabrera, Nick Swisher, Mark Teixeira, Jorge Posada, Jimmy Rollins and Shane Victorino. Twenty-six men. Over half of the two combined rosters. Juuust a bit outside the “normal” distribution of lefties among the general public.)
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Posted 11/2/2009
