Baseball Poem

Stolen Butter

Chooga-Chooga-Chooga-Chooga-Chooga-Chooga
Shiny steel tracks and dusty coal stacks
The line of the 9:30 train,
Bound for the great big town,
Pounds and pounds
On the flat farm ground,
Traveling all around
From the wet Northwest,
Home of farmboys and cold rain,
To the educated East
And then right back again.
In the dining car,
Full of fur and fun and overweight nuns,
Our set scene unfolds over the tea:
The waiter turns left and right
And then who does he see?

The ghost of a boy with a bullet in his belly
Now that's a tummy-ache!

Ladies and Gentlemen,
Here's one for the books!
Let's guess this boy's destination
By his height and looks:
Tall and tan of skin,
More of a man than a boy
And with a smile women surely do enjoy.
He's got brown eyes and strength to spare
Look at those white teeth and chestnut hair!
He's got calluses on his young hands
And he's steady where he stands
But he's no worker, I wager,
But a promising young athlete!
Where do you go, boy,
With your bag full of baseball bats and toys?
To see Orleans, with the swamps and toads?
“No.”
To visit the Colossus shining at Rhodes?
“No.”
To see hot and hilly San Francisco
Or maybe the ruin and rubble in Rome?
“No.” 7

Well!

Where is it, then,
that you want to go, Roy from Idaho?

“I'm going to the great big city of Chicago,
Where I'm going to lay the fans down low-
I'm a baseball player and the best there ever was
And no one can slam that ball like I does.”

Oh! He's a baseball player
And a home-run hitter, at that!
Well, he's quite the coming thing,
No one sit where he's sat,
He might come right back
And hit you with his bat!
Let's have a show, then, boy,
Let's see how good you really are!

“I'm the best there ever was
And I'm going to be a star.
I'd like to give you a show,
I really, really would
But I got this bullet in my gut
And I wouldn't be no good.”
“But tell you what,
I'll practice swinging
Like I was in the gym
And you can ooh and aah
At where I pretend to hit ‘em.”

The blue eyed woman sits in the corner,
And reads of pumps and Percival
But he's heard it all,
No cups or castles or fishing affairs-
Look past his lips,
Worlds you will find there.

“There's one!
And there's one!
That's a homer, right there!”

---Anonymous—poem not signed.