Baseball Poems

This May the Hall of Fame conducted its first baseball haiku contest, and poets from all over the United States and Canada submitted hundreds of entries.

An all-star panel of Hall of Fame staffers judged the poems, and chose the six winners below, which will remain posted on our web site through Hall of Fame Weekend.

Haiku is an ancient Japanese verse form which requires a poem to be three lines long. The first and third lines of the poem should contain five syllables, and the middle line should contain seven syllables. Good haiku poems usually incorporate a reference to nature, particularly to the season of the year. This makes haiku a perfect form of poetry for expressing thoughts of baseball, since baseball is so intimately connected to the seasons.

The six winners will each receive a copy of Line Drives: 100 Contemporary Baseball Poems, a new anthology published by Southern Illinois University press in 2002, and co-edited by the Hall of Fame's own research director, Tim Wiles.

Smallest Red Sox fans
With shirts too wide for shoulders,
named "ARCIAPARR." 

--Kurt Blumenau, Emmaus, PA

The field is empty 
The baseball game has ended 
No more cheering crowds 

--Mary Catherine Harmon, Milford, NY

Ball falls harmlessly 
Dark October night cool, crisp 
Last man coming home 

--Patrick Lethert, Woodbury, MN

Bonds swings the maple, 
Pac bell is aroar, the long 
winter is no more. 

--Perry Dugger, Madisonville, KY

My fifty-third spring; 
Once again I carefully 
Oil up the old mitt. 

--Larry Bole, New York, NY

Pitchers and catchers 
Report in February 
Spring training begins

--James Bernhardt,
(Submitted without place information)