[Joy in Mudville]

Joy in Mudville
BASEBALL LEAGUE

With apologies to Ernest Lawrence Thayer . . .

The outlook won’t be brilliant for all the Joy in Mudville nine,
Some will have winning teams while others will look like mine.
But with fantasy football officially in the tank for many of us,
It’s time to have yet another reason to cuss.

Nine have come together to pass away the winter gloom,
Some have never met while others have shared the bar room.
Nineteen seventy is the year we’re agreed upon as a start,
Soon we’ll see who has the best GM/manager smarts.

A strangling few may go in deep despair,
While others will cling to that hope which springs eternal in the human breast;
We believe, as GM/managers if we can only get a whack at that –
We’d put up even money, now, with our baseball knowledge at the bat.

Armchair executives will each run a pair of teams,
One from the AL and one from the NL to carry out our dreams.
While the right moves will seem within easy reach,
Some of us will soon realize why it is that we teach.

Now, it’s nearly time for this awful prose to end,
The good news is there’s not a dime to spend.
So, begin by looking over your roster, lineups and pitching staff,
Some of us will cry while others of us will laugh.

My God, Tim’s got Bench and Perez and Rose,
My team looks like it isn’t worth an old pile of clothes.
But, what I’m really wondering is why so many of you wanted the White Sox,
Fifty six wins that season with the likes of Buddy Bradford stepping into the box.

Oh, somewhere in this favored land the sun will be shining bright;
The band will be playing somewhere, and somewhere hearts will be light,
And somewhere men will be laughing, and somewhere children will shout;
There will be Joy in Mudville, of that, there is no doubt.