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| The American National Game of Base Ball: Grand Match at Elysian Fields, Hoboken, N.J. | Currier and Ives lithograph, 1866 |
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A Ballad of the Republic, Sung in
the Year 1888
The
outlook wasn't brilliant for the Mudville nine that day:
The
score stood four to two, with but one inning more to play,
And
then when Cooney died at first, and Barrows did the same,
A
pall-like silence fell upon the patrons of the game.
A
straggling few got up to go in deep despair. The rest
Clung
to the hope which springs eternal in the human breast;
They
thought, "If only Casey could but get a whack at that—
We'd
put up even money now, with Casey at the bat."
But
Flynn preceded Casey, as did also Jimmy Blake,
And
the former was a hoodoo, while the latter was a cake;
So
upon that stricken multitude grim melancholy sat,
For
there seemed but little chance of Casey getting to the bat.
But
Flynn let drive a single, to the wonderment of all,
And
Blake, the much despisèd, tore the cover off the ball;
And
when the dust had lifted, and men saw what had occurred,
There
was Jimmy safe at second and Flynn a-hugging third.
Then
from five thousand throats and more there rose a lusty yell;
It
rumbled through the valley, it rattled in the dell;
It
pounded on the mountain and recoiled upon the flat,
For
Casey, mighty Casey, was advancing to the bat.
There
was ease in Casey's manner as he stepped into his place;
There
was pride in Casey's bearing and a smile lit Casey's face.
And
when, responding to the cheers, he lightly doffed his hat,
No
stranger in the crowd could doubt 'twas Casey at the bat.
Ten
thousand eyes were on him as he rubbed his hands with dirt;
Five
thousand tongues applauded when he wiped them on his shirt;
Then
while the writhing pitcher ground the ball into his hip,
Defiance
flashed in Casey's eye, a sneer curled Casey's lip.
And
now the leather-covered sphere came hurtling through the air,
And
Casey stood a-watching it in haughty grandeur there.
Close
by the sturdy batsman the ball unheeded sped—
"That
ain't my style," said Casey. "Strike one!" the umpire said.
From
the benches, black with people, there went up a muffled roar,
Like
the beating of the storm-waves on a stern and distant shore;
"Kill
him! Kill the umpire!" shouted someone on the stand;
And
it's likely they'd have killed him had not Casey raised his hand.
With
a smile of Christian charity great Casey's visage shone;
He
stilled the rising tumult; he bade the game go on;
He
signaled to the pitcher, and once more the dun sphere flew;
But
Casey still ignored it and the umpire said, "Strike two!"
"Fraud!"
cried the maddened thousands, and echo answered "Fraud!"
But
one scornful look from Casey and the audience was awed.
They
saw his face grow stern and cold, they saw his muscles strain,
And
they knew that Casey wouldn't let that ball go by again.
The
sneer is gone from Casey's lip, his teeth are clenched in hate,
He
pounds with cruel violence his bat upon the plate;
And
now the pitcher holds the ball, and now he lets it go,
And
now the air is shattered by the force of Casey's blow.
Oh,
somewhere in this favoured land the sun is shining bright,
The
band is playing somewhere, and somewhere hearts are light;
And
somewhere men are laughing, and somewhere children shout,
But
there is no joy in Mudville—mighty Casey has struck out.
--Ernest
Lawrence Thayer
Take
Me Out to the Ball Game
Katie Casey was base ball mad.
Had the fever and had it bad;
Just to root for the home town crew,
Ev'ry sou
Katie blew.
On a Saturday, her young beau
Called to see if she'd like to go,
To see a show but Miss Kate said,
"No, I'll tell you what you can do.
"Take me out to the ball game,
Take me out with the crowd.
Buy me some peanuts and cracker jack,
I don't care if I never get back,
Let me root, root, root for the home team,
If they don't win it's a shame.
For it's one, two, three strikes, you're out,
At the old ball game."
Katie Casey saw all the games,
Knew the players by their first names;
Told the umpire he was wrong,
All along, good and strong.
When the score was just two to two,
Katie Casey knew what to do,
Just to cheer up the boys she knew,
She made the gang sing this song:
(Repeat
refrain.)
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Slide for sing-along at a theater, 1908
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Baseball’s
Sad Lexicon
These
are the saddest of possible words:
“Tinker to Evers to Chance.”
Trio
of bear cubs, and fleeter than birds,
Tinker and Evers and Chance.
Ruthlessly
pricking our gonfalon bubble,
Making a Giant hit into a double—
Words
that are heavy with nothing but trouble:
“Tinker to Evers to Chance.”
--Franklin
P. Adams
Line-up
for Yesterday
A
is for Alex
The
great Alexander;
More
Goose eggs he pitched
Than
a popular gander.
B
is for Bresnahan
Back
of the plate;
The
Cubs were his love,
and
McGraw his hate.
C
is for Cobb,
Who
grew spikes and not corn,
And
made all the basemen
Wish
they weren't born.
D
is for Dean,
The
grammatical Diz,
When
they asked, Who's the tops?
Said
correctly, I is.
E
is for Evers,
His
jaw in advance;
Never
afraid
To
Tinker with Chance.
F
is for Fordham
And
Frankie and Frisch;
I
wish he were back
With
the Giants, I wish.
G
is for Gehrig,
The
Pride of the Stadium;
His
record pure gold,
His
courage, pure radium.
H
is for Hornsby;
When
pitching to Rog,
The
pitcher would pitch,
Then
the pitcher would dodge.
I
is for Me,
Not
a hard-hitting man,
But
an outstanding all-time
Incurable
fan.
J
is for Johnson
The
Big Train in his prime
Was
so fast he could throw
Three
strikes at a time.
K
is for Keeler,
As
fresh as green paint,
The
fastest and mostest
To
hit where they ain't.
L
is for Lajoie
Whom
Clevelanders love,
Napoleon
himself,
With
glue in his glove.
M
is for Matty,
Who
carried a charm
In
the form of an extra
brain
in his arm.
N
is for Newsom,
Bobo's
favorite kin.
You
ask how he's here,
He
talked himself in.
O
is for Ott
Of
the restless right foot.
When
he leaned on the pellet,
The
pellet stayed put.
P
is for Plank,
The
arm of the A's;
When
he tangled with Matty
Games
lasted for days.
Q
is for Don Quixote
Cornelius
Mack;
Neither
Yankees nor years
Can
halt his attack.
R
is for Ruth.
To
tell you the truth,
There's
just no more to be said,
Just
R is for Ruth.
S
is for Speaker,
Swift
center-field tender,
When
the ball saw him coming,
It
yelled, "I surrender."
T
is for Terry
The
Giant from Memphis
Whose
.400 average
You
can't overemphis.
U
would be 'Ubell
if
Carl were a cockney;
We
say Hubbell and Baseball
Like
Football and Rockne.
V
is for Vance
The
Dodger's very own Dazzy;
None
of his rivals
Could
throw as fast as he.
W
is for Wagner,
The
bowlegged beauty;
Short
was closed to all traffic
With
Honus on duty.
X
is the first
of
two x's in Foxx
Who
was right behind Ruth
with
his powerful soxx.
Y
is for Young
The
magnificent Cy;
People
battled against him,
But
I never knew why.
Z
is for Zenith
The
summit of fame.
These
men are up there.
These
men are the game.
--Ogden Nash
The
Pitcher
His
art is eccentricity, his aim
How
not to hit the mark he seems to aim at,
His
passion how to avoid the obvious,
His
technique how to vary the avoidance.
The
others throw to be comprehended. He
Throws
to be a moment misunderstood.
Yet
not too much. Not errant, arrant, wild,
But
every seeming aberration willed.
Not
to, yet still, still to communicate
Making
the batter understand too late.
--Robert
Francis
Body
and Soul
Half-numb, guzzling bourbon and Coke from
coffee mugs,
our fathers fall in love with their own
stories, nuzzling
the facts but mauling the truth, and my
friend’s father begins
to lay out with the slow ease of a blues
ballad a story
about sandlot baseball in Commerce,
Oklahoma decades ago.
These were men’s teams, grown men, some in
their thirties
and forties who worked together in zinc
mines or on oil rigs,
sweat and khaki and long beers after work,
steel guitar music
whanging in their ears, little white rent
houses to return to
where their wives complained about money
and broken Kenmores
and then said the hell with it and sang
Body and Soul
in the bathtub and later that evening with
the kids asleep
lay in bed stroking their husband’s wrist
tattoo and smoking
Chesterfields from a fresh pack until
everything was O.K.
Well, you get the idea. Life goes on, the
next day is Sunday,
another ball game, and the other team shows
up one man short.
They say we’re one man short, but can we
use this boy,
he’s only fifteen years old, and at least
he’ll make a game.
They take a look at the kid, muscular and
kind of knowing
the
way he holds his glove, with the shoulders loose,
the thick neck, but then with that boy’s
face under
a clump of angelic blonde hair, and say,
oh, hell, sure,
let’s play ball. So it all begins, the men
loosening up,
pairing off into little games of catch that
heat up into
throwing matches, the smack of the fungo
bat, lazy jogging
into right field, big smiles and arcs of
tobacco juice,
and the talk that gives a cool, easy
feeling to the air,
talk among men normally silent, normally
brittle and a little
angry with the empty promise of their
lives. But they chatter
and say rock and fire, babe, easy out, and
go right ahead
and pitch to the boy, but nothing fancy,
just hard fastballs
right around the belt, and the kid takes
the first two
but on the third pops the bat around so
quick and sure
that they pause a moment before turning
around to watch
the ball still rising and finally dropping
far beyond
the abandoned tractor that marks left
field. Holy hell.
They’re pretty quiet watching him round the
bases,
but then, what the hell, the kid knows how
to hit a ball,
so what, let’s play some goddamned baseball
here.
And so it goes. The next time up, the boy
gets a look
at a very nifty low curve, then a slider,
and the next one
is the curve again, and he sends it over
the Allis Chambers,
high and big and sweet. The left fielder
just stands there, frozen.
As if this isn’t enough, the next time up
he bats left-handed.
They can’t believe it, and the pitcher, a
tall, mean-faced
man from Okarche who just doesn’t give a damn
anyway
because his wife ran off two years ago
leaving him with
three little ones and a rusted-out Dodge
with a cracked block,
leans in hard, looking at the fat catcher
like he was the sonofabitch
who ran off with his wife, leans in and
throws something
out of the dark, green hell of forbidden
fastballs, something
that comes in at the knees and then leaps
viciously towards
the kid’s elbow. He swings exactly the way
he did right-handed,
and they all turn like a chorus line toward
deep right field
where the ball loses itself in sagebrush
and the sad burnt
dust of dustbowl Oklahoma. It is something
to see.
But why make a long story long: runs pile
up on both sides,
the boy comes around five times, and five
times the pitcher
is cursing both God and His mother as his
chew of tobacco sours
into something resembling horse piss, and a
ragged and bruised
Spalding baseball disappears into the far
horizon. Goodnight,
Irene. They have lost the game and some
painful side bets
and they have been suckered. And it means
nothing to them
though it should to you when they are told
the boy’s name is
Mickey Mantle. And that’s the story, and
those are the facts.
But the facts are not the truth. I think,
though, as I scan
the faces of these old men now lost in the
innings of their youth,
I think I know what the truth of this story
is, and I imagine
it lying there in the weeds behind that
Allis Chalmers
just waiting for the obvious question to be
asked: why, oh
why in hell didn’t they just throw around
the kid, walk him,
after he hit the third homer? Anybody would
have,
especially nine men with disappointed wives
and dirty socks
and diminishing expectations for whom
winning at anything
meant everything. Men who knew how to play
the game,
who had talent when the other team had
nothing except this ringer
who without a pitch to hit was meaningless,
and they could go home
with their little two-dollar side bets and
stride into the house
singing If You’ve Got the Money, Honey,
I’ve Got the Time
with a bottle of Southern Comfort under
their arms and grab
Dixie or May Ella up and dance across the
gray linoleum
as if it were V-Day all over again. But
they did not.
And they did not because they were men, and
this was a boy.
And they did not because sometimes after
making love,
after smoking their Chesterfields in the
cool silence and
listening to the big bands on the radio
that sounded so glamorous,
so distant, they glanced over at their
wives and notice the lines
growing heavier around the eyes and mouth,
felt what their wives
felt: that Les Brown and Glenn Miller and
all those dancing couples
and in fact all possibility of human gaiety
and light-heartedness
were as far away and unreachable as Times
Square or the Avalon
ballroom. They did not because of the gray
linoleum lying there
in the half-dark, the free calendar from
the local mortuary
that said one day was pretty much like
another, the work gloves
looped over the doorknob like dead
squirrels. And they did not
because they had gone through a depression
and a war that had left
them with the idea that being a man in the
eyes of their fathers
and everyone else had cost them just too
goddamned much to lay it
at the feet of a fifteen year-old boy. And
so they did not walk him,
and lost, but at least had some ragged
remnant of themselves
to take back home. But there is one thing
more, though it is not
a fact. When I see my friend’s father
staring hard into the bottomless
well of home plate as Mantle’s fifth homer
heads toward Arkansas,
I know that this man with the half-orphaned
children and
worthless Dodge had also encountered for
his first and possibly
only time the vast gap between talent and
genius, has seen
as few have in the harsh light of an
Oklahoma Sunday, the blonde
and blue-eyed bringer of truth, who will
not easily be forgotten.
--B.
H. Fairchild
Three
Baseball Haiku
Empty baseball field --
A robin
Hops along the bench
--Jack Kerouac
Nine
men stand waiting
under storm clouds that gather.
Someone asks for time.
--Ron
Vazzano
Instant
Out
Infield
fly rule
Beautiful zen thought cut in
A diamond of lawn
--M. L.
Liebler
The
Buddhists Have the Ball Field
The
Buddhists have the ball field. Then the teams
arrive,
nine on one, but only three on the other.
The
teams confront the Buddhists. The Buddhists
present
their permit. There is little point in
arguing
it, for the Buddhists clearly have the
permit
for the field. And the teams have nothing,
not
even two complete teams. It occurs to one team
manager
to interest the Buddhists in joining his
team,
but the Buddhists won't hear of it. The teams
walk
away with their heads hung low. A gentle rain
begins.
It would have been called anyway, they
think
suddenly.
--James
Tate
Analysis
of Baseball
It's
about
the
ball,
the
bat,
and
the mitt.
Ball
hits
bat,
or it
hits
mitt.
Bat
doesn't
hit
ball, bat
meets
it.
Ball
bounces
off
bat, flies
air,
or thuds
ground
(dud)
or
it
fits
mitt.
Bat
waits
for
ball
to
mate.
Ball
hates
to
take bat's
bait.
Ball
flirts,
bat's
late,
don't
keep
the date.
Ball
goes in
(thwack)
to mitt,
and
goes out
(thwack)
back
to
mitt.
Ball
fits
mitt,
but
not
all
the
time.
Sometimes
ball
gets hit
(pow)
when bat
meets
it,
and
sails
to
a place
where
mitt
has
to quit
in
disgrace.
That's
about
the
bases
loaded,
about
40,000
fans
exploded.
It's
about
the
ball,
the
bat,
the
mitt,
the
bases
and
the fans.
It's
done
on
a diamond,
and
for fun.
It's
about
home,
and it's
about
run.
--May
Swenson
The
Baseball Players
Against
the bright
grass
the white-knickered
players
tense, seize,
and
attend. A moment
ago,
outfielders
and
infielders adjusted
their
clothing, glanced
at
the sun and settled
forward,
hands on knees;
the
pitcher walked back
of
the hill, established
his
cap and returned;
the
catcher twitched
a
forefinger; the batter
rotated
his bat
in
a slow circle. But now
they
pause: wary,
exact,
suspended while
abiding
moonrise
lightens
the angel
of
the overgrown
garden,
and Walter Blake
Adams,
who died
at
fourteen, waits
under
the footbridge.
--Donald Hall
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Safe, Jared French, 1937
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