[Magdalen] neighborhood news

[Jon Egger]

...and for those of us who suffer mightily in this Time When There Is No
Baseball, pitchers and catchers report on Feb 20, 2015.  There are 64 days
until Baseball Is Again!!!

Lineup for Yesterday, by Ogden Nash:

*A* is for Alex
The great Alexander;
More Goose eggs he pitched
Than a popular gander.

*B* is for Bresnahan
Back of the plate;
The Cubs were his love,
and McGraw his hate.

*C* is for Cobb,
Who grew spikes and not corn,
And made all the basemen
Wish they weren't born.

*D* is for Dean,
The grammatical Diz,
When they asked, Who's the tops?
Said correctly, I is.

*E* is for Evers,
His jaw in advance;
Never afraid
To Tinker with Chance.

*F* is for Fordham
And Frankie and Frisch;
I wish he were back
With the Giants, I wish.

*G* is for Gehrig,
The Pride of the Stadium;
His record pure gold,
His courage, pure radium.

*H* is for Hornsby;
When pitching to Rog,
The pitcher would pitch,
Then the pitcher would dodge.

*I* is for Me,
Not a hard-hitting man,
But an outstanding all-time
Incurable fan.

*J* is for Johnson
The Big Train in his prime
Was so fast he could throw
Three strikes at a time.

*K* is for Keeler,
As fresh as green paint,
The fastest and mostest
To hit where they ain't.

*L* is for Lajoie
Whom Clevelanders love,
Napoleon himself,
With glue in his glove.

*M* is for Matty,
Who carried a charm
In the form of an extra
brain in his arm.

*N* is for Newsom,
Bobo's favorite kin.
You ask how he's here,
He talked himself in.

*O* is for Ott
Of the restless right foot.
When he leaned on the pellet,
The pellet stayed put.

*P* is for Plank,
The arm of the A's;
When he tangled with Matty
Games lasted for days.

*Q* is for Don Quixote
Cornelius Mack;
Neither Yankees nor years
Can halt his attack.

*R* is for Ruth.
To tell you the truth,
There's just no more to be said,
Just R is for Ruth.

*S* is for Speaker,
Swift center-field tender,
When the ball saw him coming,
It yelled, "I surrender."

*T* is for Terry
The Giant from Memphis
Whose .400 average
You can't overemphis.

*U* would be 'Ubell
if Carl were a cockney;
We say Hubbell and Baseball
Like Football and Rockne.

*V* is for Vance
The Dodger's very own Dazzy;
None of his rivals
Could throw as fast as he.

*W* is for Wagner,
The bowlegged beauty;
Short was closed to all traffic
With Honus on duty.

*X* is the first
of two x's in Foxx
Who was right behind Ruth
with his powerful soxx.

*Y* is for Young
The magnificent Cy;
People battled against him,
But I never knew why.

*Z* is for Zenith
The summit of fame.
These men are up there.
These men are the game.

*Line-Up For Yesterday by Ogden Nash ©*



  Ogden Nash was raised in Savannah, Georgia and attended Harvard
(1920-1921) for one year then dropped out for financial reasons.

Do you know who the nicknames
<http://www.baseball-almanac.com/hof/hofnick.shtml> are that Nash mentions?
Check our hall of fame nickname page to get all the answers.

Biography (by A&E networks) calls Ogden Nash one of America's most
sophisticated as well as popular poets in history. So popular that this one
poem served as inspiration for our entire ballplayers
<http://www.baseball-almanac.com/players/ballplayer.shtml> section.




+++
Grace & peace,
jon


On Wed, Dec 17, 2014 at 2:12 PM, Jay Weigel <jay.weigel at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Well, growing up in Madison within literal hearing distance of Camp Randall
> Stadium, in a neighborhood that was quite literally Coachville kind of
> makes one very aware of what's going on athletically. At the time I was
> growing up, our neighborhood was home to the head and freshman football
> coaches and one of the other (defensive maybe?) football coaches also, one
> of the basketball coaches, the track and cross-country coach, and the
> swimming coach. IIRC the rowing coach also levied in the area. This is no
> longer true, as the university now pays enough for them to live in much
> tonier neighborhoods.
>
> On Wed, Dec 17, 2014 at 2:48 PM, Scott Knitter <scottknitter at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> >
> > On Wed, Dec 17, 2014 at 1:10 PM, Joseph Cirou <romanos at mindspring.com>
> > wrote:
> > > I enjoy yours and David's loyalty to Wisconsin. I love Chicago and my
> > home
> > > state, but my affections didn't go much beyond the Bears, Cubs, and
> White
> > > Sox--Mike Ditka and Halas dule
> >
> > I'm a bad Chicagoan for not really caring about any of the teams. I
> > wish them well in their jobs, but their success or failure doesn't
> > affect my mood. Plenty of other things already do. :)
> >
> >
> > --
> > Scott R. Knitter
> > Edgewater, Chicago, Illinois USA
> >
>