Skip to main content

A New Lineup

As a person of limited substance, I have always been drawn to both light verse and baseball.  In the first grade we were asked to recite a poem in front of the class.  Amidst various renditions of Roses are Red, Jack and Jill, and Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, I offered up Ogden Nash's Lineup for Yesterday: An ABC of Baseball Immortals -- all 26 stanzas and 104 lines.

In this popular poem - first published by SPORT Magazine in 1949 and seen HERE - I had discovered the masterful confluence of my two prime interests.  I was hooked young.and never lost my love for this unique work.  In fact, more than 50 years removed from that classroom, I still recite it to myself when I need to pass time waiting for the water to boil or the timer on the microwave to run its course. 



With that in mind - and desperately avoiding whatever task actually needed to be done - I attempted an homage to Mr. Nash with a modern "Lineup" comprised of the "Immortals" of my lifetime.  

I am well aware that one needs to share my extremely specific interests to understand this effort, but that did not deter me.  While I may lack Mr. Nash's gift for improvised language and clever wordplay, I am pleased with the result.  I imagine he might have been flattered by my effort.  At the very least, I'd hope he would not mind my imposition on his art.

With no further ado, and no illusion of comparison, I offer this lineup ... for the boy I was and the man I became.






























Comments

  1. JerryJune 21, 2017 at 11:17 PM

    Wow - you just transported me back to my youth - this was done with just the right deft touch.
    The surprises were delicious (Quisenberry! Tiant!).
    Thought I learned a new word - but help me with impervance?.
    I held my breath like a kid hoping you would include Tom Terrific, and of course you did not disappoint.
    Did you consider Gooden for K?
    Let's get this published/distributed!!!
    I am aware you have met a handful; what's the actual count there?

    ReplyDelete
  2. JerryJune 21, 2017 at 11:33 PM

    Try this one on for size:

    Dwight was a baseball meteor
    Made house calls at Shea
    .153 raised the bar
    Our own Doctor K

    Took liberties with the K placement in line 4. Maybe start a complete Mets version?!?!

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Most Beautiful Woman in the World

The other day, I came across a tidbit in the news.   It said it was the birthdate of former movie star Hedy Lamarr; she would have been 100 years old.    To call Hedy Lamarr’s life fascinating would be to damn it with faint praise.   The word to describe her journey has yet to be invented (Larmarresque?). She was much more than a beautiful woman, but beautiful she was.   Ms. Lamarr’s look was truly timeless.   Her publicity shots from the thirties and forties could be released, unaltered, today and cause the same buzz they did then.   Fortunately for her, though, the term “buzz” was not yet in vogue and she flew somewhat under the radar through a series of scandals that – if seen today – might cause the Twittersphere to explode.   She left Germany in 1933 after stirring up controversy for depicting the first female orgasm in non-pornographic film history.   She was married at least six times.   She essentially gave away h...
Post a Comment
Read more

Haypath Park

We didn’t have social media.   No Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat or Instagram.   In fact, we didn’t have the internet, cellphones or cable TV. But we had Haypath Park and that was pretty damn good. I have a vivid mid-sixties recollection of my father at the kitchen table with the Long Island Press reading an article about plans to build a park on Haypath Road.   Almost like literary foreshadowing, I sensed this was a more important nugget than whatever was on the first few pages of the paper that day. Carved out of the woods between three housing developments, our park immediately became the beating heart of a generation of local kids.   Two baseball fields, a basketball court, tennis courts, handball and some scattered diversions for younger children.   From the day the gates swung open, it rendered the question, “what are you doing after school?” obsolete. In my decade or so tethered to the park, I tried just about every game known to man. ...
1 comment
Read more