Reviving the Art of Baseball Doggerel
A litany of problems
.    Dead arm Tommy John
.    Rotator cuff Inflamed shoulder
.    Hamstring Deep bruising
A roll call of DL pitchers
.    Chamberlain & Chavez
.    Colon Corona & Curtis
.    Feliciano & Hughes
.    Marte Sanit & Soriano
And a lazy susan carousel of prospects
.    Coming & going from the minors
What’s next? What’s the math?
How to engineer the gap between
The starting rotation and Rivera?
Tar, grease, sweat and snot —
clever viscous daubs
skew its dives and dips.
Powerless to determine
its seriously wacko flight,
mighty sluggers whiff.
.
Barbara Gregorich is the author of She’s on First, Women at Play, and the recently published mystery, Sound Proof. Her poetry has been published in Barnwood, Blue Collar Review, Prairie Journal, and other magazines.
See that half black boy over there, runnin’ scared
His baseball game just goes half-throttle
He done quit getting high fives to choke full time
So now his fans are living in the bottle
See that half black boy over there, runnin’ scared
His baseball game just goes half-throttle
This ol’ man has got a problem
Can’t do hardly anything,
Minka won’t get a wedding ring but a bottle.
And don’t you think it’s a crime
When time after time, our old heroes send us reaching for the bottle
Living in a bottle
See that half brotha he was so fine before he
Stared to decline
While his fans hit the bottle
Last time he was fine was in 2009
and now he’s just markin’ time,
While his fans hit the bottle.
You’ll find David posting with the rest of Yankee stalwarts over at It Is High, It Is Far, It Is….Caught.
Walk
Walk
Walk
Boom!!!
Run
Run
Run
Run
.
Dick Allen, who played for 15 years with the Phillies (Rookie of the Year, 1964) and White Sox (MVP, 1972), was also a fine soul singer. This song was released in 1968 on the Groovey Grooves label. His group once performed at halftime during a 76ers game. From Wikipedia, here’s a review of the performance from the Philadelphia Inquirer:
“Here came Rich Allen. Flowered shirt. Tie six-inches (152 mm) wide. Hiphugger bell-bottomed pants. A microphone in his hands. Rich Allen the most booed man in Philadelphia from April to October, when Eagles coach Joe Kuharich takes over, walked out in front of 9,557 people at the Spectrum last night to sing with his group, The Ebonistics, and a most predictable thing happened. He was booed. Two songs later though, a most unpredictable thing happened. They cheered Rich Allen. They cheered him as warmly as they have ever cheered him for a game winning home run.”