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Thursday, April 12, 2012

Dinosaurs / History / Sports / Books / Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz Today in Baseball History and Poetry

Posted by Chicago Fan on Thu, Apr 12, 2012 at 7:28 PM

Today in Baseball History: in 1912, the last game the famed Cubs double-play combination of Tinker, Evers and Chance played together. Frank Chance is a bona-fide Hall of Famer as either a player or a manager, but Joe Tinker and Johnny Evers are only in Cooperstown because of this bit of doggerel

Baseball's Sad Lexicon

These are the saddest of possible words
"Tinker to Evers to Chance."
A trio of Bearcubs and fleeter than birds
Tinker and Evers and Chance.

Ruthlessly pricking our gonfalon bubble
Turning a Giant hit into a double
Words that are heavy with nothing but trouble:
Tinker to Evers to Chance.

So, who says literature never accomplishes anything?

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Comments (8) RSS

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Imagine "The Giants win the gonfalon. The Giants win the gonfalon...."

Posted by kinaidos on April 12, 2012 at 7:58 PM

Meanwhile Heat just fizzled again.

Posted by Supreme Ruler Of The Universe

on April 12, 2012 at 8:07 PM

I can tell someone from Chicago wrote this because there is no connection made to the baseball-playing Frank Chance character in The Brothers K by PNW author David James Duncan, and no mention of Algonquin Round Table wit Franklin Pierce Adams, the doggerel's author.

Posted by Keister Button on April 12, 2012 at 8:20 PM

@3 The Brothers K is an OK book, but not worth mentioning in relation to this poem. As for Adams as the author, yeah, the ART is not my area of literary expertise. Maybe I'll post a Nelson Algren baseball poem when it seems apropos. And I know this comment was by a Seattleite due to its provincial judgmentalism. Probably still pining for the Pilots, eh? Cubs beat 'em today.

Posted by Chicago Fan on April 12, 2012 at 8:31 PM

@4, I dunno what you know about what, but your analysis of this bit of doggerel is 100% correct. The Hall is full of guys like this, all voted in by 90 year old guys who remember their buddies. Some day their modern equivalents will vote in Omar Vizquel -- the man Bill James famously called "the greatest player in the history of baseball...named Omar".

Posted by Fnarf

on April 12, 2012 at 8:38 PM

"And I know this comment was by a Seattleite due to its provincial judgmentalism."

LOL

I like this post. I know so little about classic baseball history.

Posted by floater on April 12, 2012 at 9:10 PM

I love it. One of my forebears played ball back in those days, but I never took much of an interest as a kid. Now that I'm grown it's a pleasure to run across Olde Baseball tidbits like this. Keep 'em coming.

Posted by gloomy gus on April 12, 2012 at 10:42 PM

@7 Will do. As idleness, coincidence and internet access allows.

Posted by Chicago Fan on April 12, 2012 at 11:10 PM