Pitchers threw No-Nos:
Blanco, Cease, Snell, Cubs-combo.
Han Kang won Nobel.
Baseball Parity, Chicago Parody
Had the Dodgers
Lost just one more game,
This sub-600 season woulda been lame.
The winning percentage
Of most every other team,
Was surely a parity-lover’s dream.
Leaving aside the Angels, Marlins, Rockies,
And the historically bad White Sox,
All the other ballclubs had their shots.
Within sniffing distance of the wild card,
A couple of wins here and there
Woulda given your team a playoff share.
If the Mets and Tigers coulda
Advanced to the second round,
My Cubbies, too, shoulda stuck around.
Yeah, there may be MLB pair-a-tee,
But as Steve Goodman’s Dying Cubs Fans know
They still play the blues in Chi-ca-go.
The Oakland Blues
You lose a game,
And it hurts
Like a paper cut.
You don’t make the playoffs,
And it hurts
Like a broken nose.
You lose the last game of the World Series,
And it hurts
Like a Type III fracture.
You lose one hundred and twenty games,
And it still don’t hurt
Like having your heart ripped out.
Becuz’ in your world,
The hurt will heal
As you wait until next year.
Like a rainbow thief, the A’s owner
Has forever stolen the Green & Gold
And left only the Blues.
He’s stealing away,
Up Highway 80 to sAcrAmento,
Chasing a pot o’ gold to lAs vegAs.
The letter “A” has been ripped out of
The O*kl*nd *lph*bet.
And now he*rt sounds like hurt.
A broken old man sits crying
In the desolate Coliseum
With a cancer of the heart.
Becuz’ in his world,
The hurt will metastasize
On every Opening Day.
Go-juu/Go-juu, 50/50
In Japan, on July 5, 1994,
A mama flipped a coin;
A papa flipped it once more.
Go-juu/Go-juu: a Japanese number, now Dodger Blue!
Glove in hand, Papa wanted a boy;
Hugging a doll, Mama wanted a girl.
Regardless, their healthy child was a joy.
Go-juu/Go-juu: a Japanese number, now Dodger Blue!
On a Miami night, some 30 years later,
Some fans wanted a stolen base,
Others wanted a 400-foot homer.
Ain’t a swifty 50/50 out-of-the-ballpark nifty!
For all baseball fans, what a joyous treat
To watch Shohei Otani
Achieve his prodigious feat.
Ain’t a swifty 50/50 out-of-the-ballpark nifty!
Holy Cow! Holy Cow! Holy Cow! Holy Cow!
It might be …
In 1945, Harry, the great-grandpater,
Told beer-fueled stories about Cardinals like Stan the Man.
It could be …
Harry’s son, Skip, made calls straighter,
As straight as a Braves arrow off the bat of Hammerin’ Hank.
It is!
Skip’s boy is a charismatic Chip off the old block.
First with Gramps and the Cubs; then Dad and the Braves; and now the Cards.
A home run!!
In 2024, Chris joined the Caray MLB broadcast stock.
A’s fans hear echoes in this descendant of baseball’s royal family of bards.
Holy Cow!!!
These joyful announcers hit an inside-the-ballpark family-four-bagger.
Calling games for the A’s, Cards, Cubs, Braves, and Sox with swagger.
Take Me Out to the Ball Game!!!!
Four generations talkin’ baseball lore.
Harry Christopher Caray: I, II, III, IV.
“Let’s Play Two!”
Ernie Banks wanted
To play a doubleheader
Every day, because
He loved baseball so
Much that one was not enough
To satisfy him.
Wilbur Wood lost two
Games of a doubleheader.
He started both games,
Throwing his trademark
Knuckleball ball to twenty-four
Wins, twenty losses.
Billy Williams and
Ron Santo played every game
In 1965.
Perhaps a couple
Players will play all the games
In 2024.
Ferguson Jenkins
Threw 29 complete games
In 1974.
MLB may not
Have 29 complete games
In 2024.
So why does baseball
Today give hitters days off
And pitchers pitch counts?
Is Pampers part of
How managers lead their teams?
Or a diaper brand?
Brandon’s No Babe, But Shohei What!
What’s he doing out there
on the pitching mound?
He looks more like a bear
than a throwing hound.
Position players
say their prayers,
when the manager
says, “You’re my reliever.”
Babe Ruth began his career
with a pitch that hitters feared.
But when he traded in his ball,
His bat made him Bunyanesque tall.
When Brandon Crawford pitched
Batters were not bewitched.
He had an astronomical 27.00 ERA.
So what, he wasn’t even batting his weight.
Some say Triple Crown threat Shohei never shoulda
Pitched, even if imitate Cy Young he coulda.
But over a 162-game season,
Let’s have some fun with batting/pitching treason.
Giant Shoulders
In honor of Willie Howard Mays, Jr., 1931–2024
Stand on the shoulders
of the Giants’ Willie Mays
and roar, “Say Hey, Kids!”
The Rhyno
With apologies to Ogden Nash’s “The Rhinoceros”
The rhino is a homely beast.
Our Ryno was a home run beast.
For human eyes he’s not a feast.
For Cubbie fans he was a feast.
Farewell, farewell, you old rhinoceros.
Hello, hello, you stalwart Ryne Sandberg-us.
I’ll stare at something less prepoceros.
I’ll admire your likeness as a bronze iceberg-us.
Welcome to the HOF pantheon outside of Wrigley.
Along with Ernie, Billy, Ronnie, Harry, and Fergie.
The Negro Leagues Got Us Here
“I can’t believe it,”
said Hall of Famer Willie Mays.
“I never thought I’d see
in my lifetime
a Major League Baseball game
being played on the very field
where I played baseball as a teenager.
It has been 75 years
since I played for the
Birmingham Black Barons
at Rickwood Field…
To learn that my Giants
and the Cardinals will play
a game there and honor
the legacy of the Negro Leagues…
is really emotional for me.
We can’t forget
what got us here
and that was
the Negro Leagues
for so many of us.”
Willie Mays quoted by Bob Nightengale about the MLB game at Birmingham’s historic Rickwood Field to be played on June 20, 2024 (USA Today, June 20, 2023)
Dr. Oza’s novel Double Play sits at the intersection of Ernie Banks’ Cubs, the Negro Leagues, riding the “L,” wrongful convictions, immigration and friendship. It will be published in October 2024 by Chicago’s Third World Press.