The Ballad of the Beantowne Bosox

Sample Verses from the Beantown Ballad

Game Four Stuff!

Then Wakefield pitches! The Ball Goes Nuts!
With properties not fully known,
It boogies, break-dances, zips north and south
And ends up in the strike zone.

That ball does a twirl, a parry, a feint
When Wakefield omits the spin.
To the batter it looks like the Boston Ballet
After slightly too much gin.

Or like Bird fakin' to Ainge but hittin' McHale,
Or the puck on the stick of Bourque,
Or Brady and Branch fakin' three backs
Into a clockwise torque.

When that ball gets halfway home
Whatever the batter's pluck
He still is looking for some kind of clue
'Bout whether to swing or to duck.

Wakefield delivers three innings
Of knucklers all over the place!
'Twixt playful ball and wailin' bat
Are huge quantities of space.

Game Seven Stuff!

In a championship context,
Grand Slams are really cool
'Cause they Rock the House that Ruth Built
From Attic to Vestibule...

The Yanks were looking to maybe fine-tune
Vasquez's last pitch selection,
Recalling how far his last one had flown
In a right-field bleacher direction...

When Damon the J-Man in This Seventh Game
Sees two pitches 'pon which he calls dibbies
And Clocks them Afar with a Titan's Might,
It's Sweet. Two Swings. Six Ribbies.

When the Yanks get down eight to one
After four (count 'em four) short innings,
Their fans might well begin to doubt
Their aptitudinal underpinnings.

F'rinstance the guy in the right-field stands
Who yesterday yelled "Who's your daddy?"
While hitting the dirt to duck Damon's Blast
Finds himself feeling less chatty.

Whereas the Sox are feelin' the Joy
Of Johnny Crankin' a Slam
And then a Twofer into the seat
For which that guy paid many a clam.

From the Ballad's book jacket

Listen my children and you shall hear
Of a Team and a Towne and a Heck of a Year!
’Twas the 16th of April, Two Thousand Four
When the Bosox of Beantowne kicked off some Lore.

Thus begins the most Magical Story in the History of Sport. On these pages, Championship Teamwork and Athleticism meet the nimble wit of a True Poetic Artisan. Greatness Achieved in Mythological Measure in Game Four, when Roberts steals second! Then:

Those Puckish gods of Baseball Fate
Lounging in fields of clover,
Were inventing the Curse of the Berra:
“It ain’t over till it’s over!”

Great Pitching! Stuff Shakespeare would have written if he’d had a T.V.:

As the games thus evened at three apiece,
As to a seventh the Sox fought toward,
They proved their Pen was Mightier
Than the Yanks, who through three had soared!

Relive this Odyssey of Homers! Revel again, through 295 verses of playful wordsmithery by a true Baseball Virtuoso, the play-by-play that brought Victory’s Sweet Cup of Immortality to Boston!

With Manny on, Ortiz makes Brown’s first pitch
Do a noise like “Kablooie!”
And sing as it clears the right-field wall,
“Meet me in St. Louie!”

Destined to be a true classic, the clever wordplay on these pages is literature, history, sports entertainment and humor, all rolled into the Shared Memories of Greatness Achieved in Boston’s Championship Year!