Best-Selling Humorist.
Today at BARDBALL, an ode to an old baseball lifer.
Old Zim
When I think of him
Looks like chaw and tar
And a grand har-har
To those squares
Who don’t care
About baseball
And giving your all
For what you love.
And when push comes to shove,
Had Martinez been 70,
Zim would’ve pounded him plenty.
You’re our kind of guy.
Goodbye, Popeye.
I’ve been too busy with speeches and the latest Rex Koko novel (COMING VERY SOON!) to come over here to the blog and talk about the latest in baseball doggerel. For those of you who miss it, here’s my latest piece of hackery from over there, about Derek Jeter’s farewell tour.
Remember, if you like your baseball poetry fast, loose and unsentimental, check out Bardball daily during the season, and tell your friends about it.
The Captain’s Yard Sale
A dining set of broken bats
A navy pinstripe yoga matA year’s supply of Genny Cream
A keg signed by the vending teamA “2″ carved out of northern granite
A solar-cell vibrating hammockA zircon-slathered Yankee topper
A 2,000-gallon popcorn popperAnother ugly pair of boots
A vid lip-synching with the Roots“2s” in crystal, onyx, steel,
Beer cans, tree trunks and fresh vealA wondrous Joe-Girardi-shaped ‘tater
A Japanese robot fellaterIt’s not a hoarder’s dream or last mirage –
Just what’s stuffed in Jeet’s garage.
Rick Monday
Born on Tuesday
Homered off Seaver Wednesday
Traded on Thursday
Saved the flag Friday
Broke Canada’s heart Saturday
Retired on Sunday
And that’s why people still talk about Rick Monday.
Yesterday was Mike Ditka Day in Illinois, on which the former player/coach’s number 89 was retired by the Chicago Bears. It was an honor long overdue, not to mention a reconciliation between the hard-headed Ditka and the petty and long-memoried Bears. But he’s the only player to return and coach his team to a Super Bowl, so whatever you want to say about him, he was at the helm at the right time. And those of use who watched the 1985 Bears roll to the Super Bowl will remember what a magnificent season it was. While the youngsters might get sick of us reminiscing about it, it was what made me a Bears fan.
So after watching the Bears in the unlikely situation of shellacking their opponent during the game last night, my doggerel muse was tickled a little. I wrote some lines before I went to bed, then finished them up this morning. The good people over at ChicagoSide printed it this noon, and now you can enjoy it here. Go Bears!
Here’s a little taste to get you started:
TWAS THE NIGHT OF DITKA
….
Then at halftime they rolled out a giant red carpet
And displayed all his trophies like goods at the market.Us fans held our breath, even though it was froze.
Twas like the coming of Santa, Jesus and D. Rose.Da Coach came into view, all pink in the face,
In a dapper top coat, not a hair out of place.He strode tall and erect, like a much younger man,
A youth-giving sight to most of the fans.And at midfield, what wondrous sight do we see
But Ditka standing next to McCaskey!This wasn’t the one who fired him, still
Ditka Day is a time for peace and goodwill.
Read the rest of it at ChicagoSide!
It’s been a crazy Fall Classic so far — pitching duels, sloppy fielding, heroic at-bats. If WP Kinsella had written it, no one would believe the plot. Tonight it looks like the Red Sox have the upper hand, but I can’t cheer for those bunch of bearded barristas because of how they battered my Bengals in the ALCS.
Over at Bardball, we’re putting up a couple of poems a day, fast and furious, as we try and document all the action in doggerel form. Plenty of limericks by Hilary Barta, of course, and other poems from surprise contributors. Please go check it out, and like our Facebook page, which gives you both daily updates AND poems that you can’t get anywhere else.
I’ve been writing a lot of clerihews this season, a very fun structure that fits my style. (And Hilary is such a demanding limericist that I tend to give him the spotlight.) Here are a couple of clerihews from the 2013 World Series:
Jonny Gomes
Has earned his bones
Journeyman player
Redbird slayer
Kolten Wong
Did it wrong
And now will be mocked for eternity by passels
Of Massholes.
Carlos Beltran
Into a wall ran
In his Series debut
Cracking a rib in two.
By which I mean, the politics is nonsensical, not the poems. A friend threw a dinner party over the weekend, and asked everyone to bring a political poem to share. Some read from others, but I felt the challenge was to write our own. So I wrote a couple. This first one is a comment on who want to dismantle FEMA because of various paranoid fantasies:
To those who want to disband FEMA,
Who say it’s just a brown-shirt scheme, a
Thing that saps our moral will
While siphoning money from the till,Who hold all government in disdain
And think our fundamental plan
Is to leave each other as we are, in
A twisted sort of nod to Darwin,To deify the individual
And trash the institutional,
Push “survival of the fittest”
And hoist a vengeful God as witness –To those I say, all well and good.
Don’t call me during YOUR next flood.
And this second one is in response to a news item from the great state of Michigan, where a Court of Appeals has ruled unconstitutional a law that prohibited patrons from entering libraries while strapped. Here’s the story in the Detroit Free Press. Please be careful choosing the people with whom you argue about Norman Mailer today. Or Zane Grey, for that matter.
If America’s exceptional in any way,
I think it might be this’n:
We care less ‘bout packing heat in libraries
Than ‘bout men on TV kissin’.
I wrote a short silly salute to the fearsome starting rotation of the 1971 Baltimore Orioles for Bardball yesterday. It was only the second rotation to contain four 20-game winners in 92 years, just a buzzsaw that sent fear into their opponents.
I remember hating the Orioles as a kid, because they were the elite of the AL at the time, and always seemed to have the number of my beloved Tigers. Now, as the team is doing well for the first time in a generation, I feel a certain fondness for them. There’s all the old saws about Baltimore being a great old baseball town that has long suffered, blah blah. It’s probably just nostalgia on my part, or a generous mood to let bygones be bygones. The Oakland A’s are also okay by me lately for the same reason.
The Royals, however, can still suck it.
It’s been a while since I posted one of my poems from Bardball here. Not that I haven’t been working on keeping the site alive and growing, but because I’m starting to lose track of all the online venues I’m supposed to feed material to. The Internet is starting to feel like Audrey II, with constant cries of “FEED MEEEE!”
Anyway, here’s a fresh one from yesterday’s White Sox-Tigers game, possibly the most important game between them this year:
Madre de Dios! Ese Alex Rios!
Among Omar Infante’s dislikes
Must be incoming baserunners – Yikes!
To dodge getting maimed
Cost the Bengals the game –
One of inches, and feet wearing spikes.
As you fans know, this has been a helluva week for postseason baseball. I’ve had the obligation (yes, this is what I tell my wife) to watch my hometown team as it struggles mightily against the scary Texas Rangers. How many one run and two run victories can either team survive? There have been no laffers, no routs, nothing that would make you turn the game off early.
And as usual with the postseason, the expected heroes (Verlander, Cabrera, Hamilton) have not been nearly as productive as the also-rans (Nelson Cruz, Delmon Young). Why this happens every postseason is worthy of someone’s research. Maybe the heroes are too exhausted, or too distractible from all their interviews, or put too much pressure on themselves to single-handedly carry the team. Whatever it is, it’s what makes October baseball so awesome.
And it’s been a great week for limericks at Bardball.com. Earlier in the week, I relaxed the rule of only one post per day, and the limericks have been plentiful, in both posts and comments. And shame on us, we haven’t been able to give any space to poems on the Brewers-Cardinals series (well, I do have one lim on the Cardinals, but because it came from a Cubs fan, it’s really nasty). Below is a sample of one of our better ones, by Hilary Barta, who also runs the site LimerWrecks. Come on over and check it all out before the World Series. That’s gonna be a yawner, I tell ya.
That hit over Beltre was crazy
A bit of the old upsy-daisy
The Rangers were trounced
when Detroit’s way it bounced,
still kicking like Cameron Swayze.
I haven’t posted my poems from Bardball in the past couple weeks, but for those who don’t feel like going over there, I thought I’d bring one over here.
Today’s was inspired by last week’s passing of manager Dick Williams, an old=school hardass who achieved some marvelous things with his players (and, though I couldn’t manage to work it into the poem, quit the Oakland A’s after two pennants and a World Series because he couldn’t stand working for owner Charlie Finley). RIP, Dick.
When Oakland’s Swingin’ A’s were swingin’,
A hard-playing, mustachioed team–
Williams quit after winning two titles.
The skipper never changed or mellowed
In Expos white or Padres yellow.
Old-school grit, speed and defense vital.
Angels in heaven might hear him scream,
“You with the harp! You call that singin’?”
My first new baseball poem of the year, up today on Bardball:
Zach Grienke’s arm is hinky.
Jake Peavy’s feeling skeevy.
Adam Wainwright’s wing ain’t right.
Rich Harden’s asked for pardon.
Brad Lidge is off a smidge.
That goes ditto for Johnny Cueto.And an inflamed elbow is causing
Pain for Jason Isringhausen.Thank God for March,
So these great apes
Have one less month
To fall out of shape.
For one of my favorite old horror movies:
“White Zombie’s” honeymoon bride
Gets bewitched and leaves her man’s side.
But even before,
This drip’s such a bore,
It’s hard to be certain she died.
With dark graveyard scenes, voodoo in the “Haitian” countryside, a big creepy castle, and Bela Legosi’s unibrow, this movie is a B-classic. It’s on one of the cable channels this week — catch it.
So the Chicago White Sox finally managed to mathematically eliminate themselves last night by losing to the Oakland A’s. Way to back into it, guys. Holding the door to the post-season open to the Twins. I didn’t think such politeness was such a feature of the South Side, and of the Good Guys Wearing Black.
What a frustrating year. When the Sox were firing on all cylinders in midsummer, they were playing the kind of baseball I love: dominant pitching and defense, a little small-ball mixed in with a dramatic game-winning home run once in a while. But such consistency is beyond these guys apparently.
We can be grateful, though, that that former Macy’s balloon Manny Ramirez completely embarrassed himself with his lack of hitting in the final weeks. No temptation to sign him again, I trust. Brush up on your Japanese, Manny.
So this team might get broken apart when the season ends, which would be a shame. I like the make-up of the team. But I doubt they’ll let Paulie Konerko go. He’s such the complete face of the franchise that he should be carried off on a shield after giving up his final iota of strength. I hope they keep AJ, who always makes it interesting. Bobby Jenks? Yeah, probably time for him to move on; he’s had five seasons to show himself as not-a-headcase since the World Series, and with his other injuries, I’d say it’s time to look for another closer.
As a cap to the season, I’d like to offer a prayer for Sox fans to repeat to themselves when they kneel down by their beds tonight. Posted on Bardball last week, but that was premature. Or at least completely realistic.
Now we lay us down to sleep.
Who really thought that we could sweep?We thought we had a chance at Central,
If Ozzie kept from going mental.God, forgive us of our sins
And tell us why you made the Twins.Tell us why we let go Thome,
Then brought in that dreadlocked phony.Thank you for our newfound heroes,
For Edwin Jackson, Alex Rios,Thank you for our older guard,
Thanks for Paulie going yard.Please keep the squad from getting creaky.
Make sure A.J. keeps playing sneaky.Now we’ll watch the Hawks and Bears,
Trying to ignore our fearsOf Kenny really signing Manny
And Ozzie going to Miami.
I wrote this a couple weeks ago, but never posted it here. Thought some of you might like it.
THE LEGACY OF BUD SELIG
Tons of money for the owners.
Ignorance of player-dopers.More exploitative contract bids
For dirt-poor Caribbean kids.A baseball classic for the world
Where U.S. players rarely hurled.With anti-trust still holding fast,
Small-market teams still finish last.Now, Milwaukee celebrates this schwanz
With a Selig statute cast in bronze.
From Bardball this week:
The Cubs and Cards are tied at two.
Your heart is beating like a drum.
The Cubbies could still win this thing.
Professor Santo opines, “Umm.”A walk and then a stolen base–
Is Sorey slowing down a bit?
Should Castro bunt or swing away?
Our sage says, “Cubs could use a hit.”Two outs with men on first and third.
The pitch scoots past Molina–HOW?
Alphonso races home! Cubs Win!
Mr. Insightful stammers, “Wow!”