Play Ball!

I can't believe baseball season is starting up again, already! Being a NY Mets fan, I have mixed feelings, hope coupled with a lingering sense of dread after the last few disastrous season enders. Ah well, hope springs eternal, and I look forward to getting a look at the new stadium at some point this summer. I have many fond memories of Shea Stadium, but I won't miss it, it really was not well-designed for watching baseball games.

Anyway, in celebration of this new beginning, I thought I'd include this little poem I wrote on the subject:

Myths of Baseball

Abner Doubleday, double, double day!
Invented baseball, so they double say!
Did he do it? No double way!
It’s a bit of fakelore, O double kay?

James Fenimore Cooper, coo coo cooper!
Wrote no baseball rulebook, wasn’t sue sue super!
That’s a mistake, a blue blue blooper!
I’m sorry to have to be a party poo poo pooper!

But the first recorded game was at Ho Hoboken!
That’s where baseball first was spo spo spoken!
By two New York clubs, no joe joe jokin’!
With every play new records were bro bro broken!

And as an added bonus, here's one of the funniest comedy routines every devised, and one that, in it's own way, is pure poetry, at least in my opinion:

Abbott and Costello, they may not have been as brilliant as the Marx Brothers, as original as Laurel and Hardy, or as over-the-top as The Three Stooges, but they were up there with those other comedy acts,, and Jerry Seinfeld speaks highly of them as a major source of inspiration for his own comedy.

Speaking of which, here's a classic moment from the TV series:

Loogie or not, there's always a bit of magic in the air when baseball is being played:

A great movie, yes, but I also recommend the novel that it's based on, W. P. Kinsella's Shoeless Joe, a marvelous excercise in baseball rendered via magic realism, and even more so his amazing companion novel, The Iowa Baseball Conspiracy. They are great reads, even if you're not a baseball fan!

And now, let's PLAY BALL!