Toast

I got the recording bug this weekend and thought I'd dash something off. "Toast" is an older song (c. 1997?) that I hadn't tried recording yet. In fact, I don't think I ever played this in any band (Science Diet would be the relevant band here), or even thought about playing it for any band.

As usual, it could use some more work-- I took the dodge of reciting rather than singing the interverse bits and could have sung it better in general. But this perhaps illustrates the difference between "good" and "good enough".

Teammates

The stories say
that in the beginning
(that'd be 1869)
there were the Red Stockings,
first team to openly combine
love of the game with love of money.

Harry Wright was their leader
and their pitcher.
He led them from Cincinnati to
greener commons in Boston.
In 1877, Jim O'Rourke patrolled
the outfield behind Harry.
Red Stockings become Red Caps.

Orator Jim's trip to Cooperstown
started in Connecticut
and wound
from Boston to Providence
and Buffalo and New York.
While giant in stature,
Wee Willie manned hot corner.
Red Caps become Beaneaters.

Keeler moved north to south
hitting it where they weren't.
From New York to Baltimore,
he joined a new league
and moved back north.
An Austro-Hungarian took
the mound.
Old country, newly yankee.
Beaneaters become Doves.

Jack Quinn nee Pajkos,
from apple to hub,
charm city to big shoulders
and back again.
In dotage he visits the series.
Before then he shares
the bullpen with Red.
Doves become Rustlers,
Rustlers become Braves.

Charles Herbert Ruffing
ace of Gehrig and DiMaggio's staff.
Pennant winner, hall of famer,
His last year on the Yanks
he pitched to a young catcher
named Yogi.
Braves become Bees.
Bees become Braves.

The plates began to shift
as Yogi crouched, Buddha-like
and an impenetrable dynasty
crumbles at last.
Greener pastures again beckon,
Browns become Orioles,
Senators become Twins.
Yogi catches what
Al Downing throws.
Boston becomes a one sock town,
Milwaukee tastes as great as its name.

Downing winds down
in Chavez Ravine.
Rookie Jeffrey Leonard
tries to catch on.
Peripatetic Braves lose
their taste for Milwaukee
and take root in Atlanta.

Leonard is workmanlike
and makes his way to Seattle
where the kid is at play
in the very same outfield.
There is no doubt
Junior Griffey will catch on.

Griffey still plays.
Does he remember sharing
a team, sharing a uniform
with Derek Lowe?
Did they talk about Jeffrey Leonard?
Have they heard of Al Downing?

Derek Lowe now works in Atlanta
for Harry Wright's old team.
World without end.

Let's Play Two

Older than fire,
monsters midway
from Cap to Gabby,
they won more than any
had seen before
or since.
Who ever would tinker with their chance?

Reality set in,
then surreality.
Beaten by Boston
before berating Babe.
Was the called shot his true curse?

From black cat to Bartman,
since they were last champs
the Wandering Fan could have
walked from Addison
to the Moon
and back
three times
while still getting 8 hours of sleep a night.

Still they confine themselves
in an ivy-covered whale of a park
and root steeped in the old style.
The saddest of possible words
are never
"take me out to the ballgame."
Go Cubs, go.

10,000 Losses

They have lost over 10,000 games.
That's really rather a lot.
A century's worth of 100-loss years
in a history not that much longer
than a century.

Do the fans make the team
or does
the team make the fanatic?
Broadly like bullies
arrested for battery,
rather seeming at home
in the WC
on the whole.

On the other hand
it is something of the
nature of baseball,
where murderers lose
one-third of their fights
and hitmen miss
two-thirds of their hits.
More often today's heroes
have been kids watching
history's best whiz by.

Their name is mild
upon reflection, evoking
Donahue at first,
Glass at the hot corner,
Collins behind the plate.

10,000 losses are a lot.
To their credit, they've
been able to focus
a lot more of late
on getting 11 wins
in October.

Big Six and Iron Man

Apple ere bay, polo ere candle.
Giants walked the earth in Gotham
and visited towns like
Providence and Louisville.

They took in a waif
they could not kill.
Big Six and Iron Man
would win their share.
But baseball's most enduring
boner and muff
left fans tittering in lesser cities.

Babe turned Sultan.
Little Napoleon drove the upstarts
across the Harlem
but early victories
could not be sustained:
Lou beat Irish
Joe beat Carl
Mickey beat Willie
(though Carl beat Goose
and Willie beat Bob).

When playmates went west
they tagged along.
Coogan's Bluff saw its last miracle,
lights go down on the city.

They Were Family

They were family
or so we were told.
Good times.
Even Omar the Outmaker
got some stars
for the coolest hats of my childhood.

Crazy to think about
in retrospect,
but for the first 30 years
of my life,
Pittsburgh spent
more time in October
than the Yankees.

It is a bit embarrassing.
I think we were a bit bored
with the team in the playoffs.
Young Wakefield.
Young Bonds.
I always had a soft spot
for Zane Smith.
Ironically,
the Braves were underdogs.

Older now, when I bat
in the D-league softball palaces
I still sometimes pretend
I'm Pops.

Five haiku about the Cincinnati Reds

Nicknames say it all:
Queen city, city of pigs.
The Marge Schott era.

The Big Red Machine
was the best team of all time.
Just ask Joe Morgan.

Boston fans forget
after Fisk hit his home run
the Reds won it all.

They faced the Black Sox,
they faced Mantle and Maris
Best two out of three?

Watch me get through this
without mentioning Pete Rose.
I what? Oh, phooey.