The burden of hard hitting.
Slug away
Like Honus Wagner or
like Tyrus Cobb.
Else fandom shouteth: “Who
said you could play?
Back to the jasper
league, you minor slob!”
Swat, hit, connect, line
out, get on the job.
Else you shall feel the brunt
of fandom’s ire
Biff, bang it, clout it,
hit it on the knob—
This is the end of every
fan’s desire.
The burden of good pitching.
Curved or straight.
Or in or out, or haply
up or down,
To puzzle him that standeth by
the plate,
To lessen, so to speak,
his bat-renoun:
Like Christy Mathewson
or Miner Brown,
So pitch that every man can
but admire
And offer you the
freedom of the town—
This is the end of every
fan’s desire.
The burden of loud cheering. O
the sounds!
The tumult and the
shouting from the throats
Of forty thousand at the Polo
Grounds
Sitting, ay, standing
sans their hats and coats.
A mighty cheer that
possibly denotes
That Cub or Pirate fat is in
the fire;
Or, as H. James would
say, We’ve got their goats—
This is the end of every
fan’s desire.
The burden of a pennant. O the
hope,
The tenuous hope, the
hope that’s half a fear,
The lengthy season and the
boundless dope,
And the bromidic; “Wait
until next year.”
O dread disgrace of
trailing in the rear,
O Piece of Bunting, flying
high and higher
That next October it
shall flutter here:
This is the end of every
fan’s desire.
ENVOY
Ah, Fans, let not the Quarry
but the Chase
Be that to which most
fondly we aspire!
For us not Stake, but Game;
not Goal, but Race—
THIS is the end of
every fan’s desire.
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