Big league poetry

To be honest, I don’t “get” poetry, for the most part. But poetry does go into books, and books do go onto my bookshelf so…

From Poetryfoundation.org, Levi Stahl’s feature article on “Baseball and Verse, from Tinker to Evers to Big Papi.”

More baseball poems, courtesy of the Foundation:

• Tao in the Yankee Stadium Bleachers, by John Updike
• The crowd at the ballgame, by William Carlos Williams
• Analysis of Baseball, by May Swenson
• Baseball and Classicism, by Tom Clark
• A Ballad of Baseball Burdens, by Franklin Pierce Adams

I do have a favorite, though:

• Casey at the Bat: A Ballad of the Republic (sung in the year 1888) (which spawned dozens of similar doggerel, as well as volumes of analysis)

For your entertainment, some video versions:

* This gentleman’s brogue adds a legitimacy, since so many of the characters in the poem are Irish:

* Jerry Coronna’s cartoon adaptation:

* Penn & Teller. There’s a good deal of setup involved, so please be patient.

Edgar Guest wrote a moving tribute to hank Greenberg, the game’s first Jewish superstar, reprinted here in its entirety:

Speaking of Greenberg

by Edgar A. Guest, 1934

The Irish didn’t like it when they heard of Greenberg’s
fame
For they thought a good first baseman should possess
an Irish name;
And the Murphy’s and Mulrooney’s said they never
dreamed they’d see
A Jewish boy from Bronxville out where Casey used
to be.
In the early days of April not a Dugan tipped his hat
Or prayed to see a “double” when Hank Greenberg came
to bat.

In July the Irish wondered where he’d ever learned
to play.
“He makes me think of Casey!” Old Man Murphy dared
to say;
And with fifty-seven doubles and a score of homers
made
The respect they had for Greenberg was being openly
displayed.
But on the Jewish New Year when Hank Greenberg
came to bat
And made two home runs off pitcher Rhodes-they
cheered like mad for that.

Came Yom Kippur-holy fast day world wide over
to the Jew-
And Hank Greenberg to his teaching and the old
tradition true
Spent the day among his people and he didn’t come
to play.
Said Murphy to Mulrooney, “We shall lose the game
today!”
We shall miss him on the infield and shall miss him
at the bat,
But he’s true to his religion-and I honor him
for that!”

Finally, this previous entry on Line Drives: 100 Contemporary Baseball Poems.