Bottom of the Ninth Haiku
The bases loaded--
two outs and three runs behind;
no one to pinch-hit.
--R. Gerry Fabian
On April 27, 1947, a large crowd of cheering fans welcomed Babe Ruth-- retired from baseball and struggling with poor heath-- back to the field at old Yankee Stadium. Today, Poetry on Parade celebrates Babe Ruth Day, remembering The Bambino and his return to The House that Ruth Built on that long-ago spring day. George Herman Ruth, Jr. began his professional baseball career in 1914 as a pitcher with the Boston Red Sox. During the 1919-1920 off-season, he was infamously traded to the Yankees; Ruth moved to the New York outfield and became one of baseball's most powerful sluggers and prolific hitters. Our first poem was written by a baseball fan-- a sportswriter who served as commissioner of Major League Baseball from 1951 to 1965:
Along Came Ruth
You step up to the platter
And you gaze with flaming hate
At the poor benighted pitcher
As you dig in at the plate.
You watch him cut his fast ball loose,
Then swing your trusty bat
And you park one in the bleachers--
Nothing's simpler than that!
-- Ford Frick
After trading Ruth to the Yankees, the Red Sox suffered an 86-year World Series drought-- from 1918 to 2004. We can learn more about why superstitious fans believed that Boston would never win another baseball championship in The Legend of the Curse of the Bambino by Dan Shaughnessy (796.357 SHA in the LMC). Our next poem celebrates the New York Yankees-- and the excitement and anticipation each new season brings:
The Yankees
The Yankees are in spring training
down in Florida.
I can feel them every day
cracking their bats on anvils
with each warmer sunrise.
The Yankees pound quarters
out of the moon.
The Yankees
knock birds out of trees
by the millions.
I can listen to them
chewing up the college squads
and minor leaguers
like wolves on a deer.
It is a thing to hear.
The snow
listens so hard it vanishes.
The pastures
clear themselves of everything
but wind.
The ponds collapse,
the ground moves.
The Yankees
are heading north.
-- Robert Lord Keyes
The Yankees captured seven league championships and won four World Series titles while The Sultan of Swat wore Yankee pinstripes. It's the stuff of legend... and poetry!
When Babe Ruth Hit His Last Home Run
When Babe Ruth
Hit his last home run,
It was as if the sun
Had set
Upon some huge continent
Called baseball.
After all,
Nothing Ruth did
Was small.
60 home runs
in '27.
No one had ever done
That before.
And still, after so many years,
Deep
In our sleep,
We want to be like him.
Run bases like him,
Be in the movies
Like him,
Be larger than life
Like him.
O, Babe, come back
Hit one more
Homer
For one of your earth's children.
-- Louis Phillips
Poetry Paraders and baseball fans may want to check out Casey at the Bat: A Ballad of the Republic Sung in the Year 1888 by Ernest Lawrence Thayer. Slide into the LMC and find it at 811.52 THA. It's a guaranteed hit!
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