Reviving the Art of Baseball Doggerel
It is a pure sign of respect.
Yet a gamble that must be calculated.
The number of outs;
where the runners are;
is first base open?
Who is up next?
Is his bat hot?
Does he thrive in these situations?
The manager makes the decision
and carries
the consequences
long into the late night.
R. Gerry Fabian is the author of three novels and four books of poetry. His latest book of poems, Ball On The Mound, is a collection of original baseball poems, available at Amazon.
If you would have told me
we were going to end up
flirting with the record,
I would have been
a little surprised.
Now if you would have told me
prior to the year
that we would have ended up
with over 100 losses,
105,
110,
I wouldn’t have been
as surprised.
Those days of my youth
when starters lasted seven
seem so far away
When Leo the Lip tried to name
The five strongest bats in the game
He omitted Ted Klu
Hinted he lived in the zoo
Human being? He’s not quite the same.
When Hall of Fame manager Leo Durocher was once asked by a writer to name five of the strongest players in baseball, he complied. However, when the writer pointed out that he’d left Ted Kluszewski off the list, Durocher huffed and said, “Kluszewski? I’m talking about human beings!” Happy 100th birthday, Big Klu!
