Welcome to Bardball's 19th Season
Songs and poems to celebrate the summer
Many readers have found their way to Bardball during the off-season. Welcome to our Substack! For 18 seasons now, Bardball.com has published poetry, songs, fiction and cartoons in the grand tradition of baseball doggerel. Fun, timeliness and snark are our holy trinity for digesting today’s baseball news and personalities, and through that, Life itself. Grandiose? Self-important? Patently ridiculous? Yes, yes and yes.
But then again, maybe not.
We’ve kept going because of reader contributions. Let’s hear from you! Over the years, we’ve had poems from 5th graders celebrating their first home run, 90-year-old still-optimistic Tigers fans, a Pulitzer winner and the first Poet Laureate of Canada. (That last writer, George Bowering, tossed us this bit of whimsy over the transom one day.) If you have an inspiration — for epic saga or dirty limerick — please send it along. It’s a great way to enjoy the game when your team is down 10 runs in the fourth.
For our entire searchable archive, please visit Bardball.com.
February 17, 2025
Life is Good
by James Finn Garner
Winter’s been raw as a campout in Banff,
Your new basement walls are moldy and damp,
Your curtains caught fire from a knocked-over lamp —
. Relax!
. Pitchers and catchers are reporting to camp.
Your check-writing hand’s developed a cramp,
Your bills are all due and you ain’t got a stamp,
Creditors cling to your neck like a clamp —
. Smile!
. Pitchers and catchers are reporting to camp.
Your yard is now split by a new freeway ramp,
Your son is engaged to a gold-digging tramp,
Your “guitar hero” neighbor’s just bought a new amp —
. Life is good!
. Pitchers and catchers are reporting to camp.
February 14, 2025
MLB All-Valentines-Day Team
1B Pete Roses
2B Cupid Childs
SS Jake Flowers
3B Candy Jim Taylor
LF Barry Bon-Bonds
CF Candy Maldonado
RF Eros “Country” Slaughter
C Gabby Heartnett
LHP Slim Love, Vance Lovelace, Richard Lovelady
RHP Ben Flowers, Bill Monbouquette, Vicente Amor
MGR Bobby Valentine
February 18, 2025
It Ain’t Over . . .
by Louise Grieco
Baseball is something
like love. There’s an elegance
about it — a fine tension.
Fielders pluck comets
from thin and glorious air.
pitchers make solid spheres
disappear. And batters smash meteors
with matchsticks.
But fielders also topple
over fences, sprawl empty-handed
in the dust. Pitchers throw wild.
And batters sometimes tilt
at windmills.
Yet they lean in — watch — wait.
They risk looking foolish
in order to be brilliant.
Louise Grieco’s baseball poems often travel at lightspeed to the outer reaches of the galaxy. More a fan of the sport than of any particular team, she nevertheless rooted for the Yankees as a child growing up near Boston in the 1950’s-’60s. She lives and writes in Albany NY.
February 19, 2025
True North
by James Finn Garner
“Make Canada the 51st state!”
Brays a thief-liar-rapist in hate.
Compassionate, fair,
Straight-up, self-aware–
Canucks are all things he ain’t.
February 20, 2025
In a Good Winter
by Richie Hebner
In a good winter,
I’ll dig 50 graves.
It’s good work.
I get 25 bucks a grave.
If it has snowed, you just use a pick and shovel, scoop away the snow, the ground is good and soft.
But if it hasn’t snowed, the ground might be frozen two feet down.
You have to use a pneumatic drill.
One time last winter, the ground was so hard and the weather was so cold I said,
“Ah, that’s deep enough.”
There’s a law that a grave’s got to be so deep,
five feet or something,
And the Rabbi says,
“That’s not deep enough.”
“Did you ever see one get out?”
I asked him.
h/t to Jim Koenigsberger and his great Twitter account, @Jimfrombaseball
February 21, 2025
Low and Outside #1
by Jim Siergey
