Reviving the Art of Baseball Doggerel
With apologies to Mars Bonfire and Steppenwolf
Get your players runnin’,
Head out on the basepaths.
Lookin’ for a Wild Series,
Whoever wins 4 of 7.
Yeah, D-backs and Rangers,
Make the World Series your own.
Score all your runs at once,
And explode the playoff brackets.
Like Malamud’s “Natural,”
You were born, born a wild card.
You can climb so high,
You’ll never wanna die.
Born to win Wild!
Born to win Wild!
With apologies to Percy Shelley
Reprinted from October 11, 2019.
I met a traveler in La-La Land,
Who said, “Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the Ravine . . . Near them, on the sand,
Half a ton of Gator-Ade cups lie,
And blue playoff towels now still,
And B-list actors hoping to flog their dreck
To Smoltz and the odious Buck,
And a mangled manager in a heap;
And on a whiteboard, these words appear:
‘My name is Kershawmandias, Ace of Aces;
Look on my season only, dammit, and despair!’
Nothing beside remains. Round the meltdown
Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level field stretches far away.”
For the story behind this photo, visit Atlas Obscura.