Thread: Sports Poetry
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Unread 01-29-2021, 07:05 PM
Julie Steiner Julie Steiner is offline
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Baseball's Sad Lexicon
Franklin Pierce Adams

These are the saddest of possible words:
     “Tinker to Evers to Chance.”
Trio of bear cubs, and fleeter than birds,
     Tinker and Evers and Chance.
Ruthlessly pricking our gonfalon bubble,
     Making a Giant hit into a double—
Words that are heavy with nothing but trouble:
     “Tinker to Evers to Chance.”

Published: New York Evening Mail (July 10, 1910)

This legendary poem pays tribute to Chicago Cubs shortstop Joe Tinker, second baseman Johnny Evers and first baseman Frank Chance. The trio first appeared in their infield positions together on September 13, 1902, and they turned their first double play on September 15, 1902.

The author was Franklin Pierce Adams, who was a sportswriter for the New York Evening Mail, and briefly a poet thanks to an article that his editors said was too short — making him pen "Baseball's Sad Lexicon" to fill that space while on his way to cover a game at the Polo Grounds.

[Adapted from Baseball Almanac]

[CORRECTION: According to another source, Adams was definitely not "briefly a poet":

Quote:
Adams' poetry is light and conventionally rhymed. He hated free verse and was never slow in expressing this opinion. His verse is collected in 10 volumes, beginning with Tobogganning on Parnassus (1911); the final volume, The Melancholy Lute (1936), is Adams' selection from 30 years of his writing.

Last edited by Julie Steiner; 01-30-2021 at 09:11 AM.
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