To the tune: Li'l baby, don't say a word: Mama goin' to buy you a mockingbird. And if that Mockingbird don't sing: Mama is goin to sell it and buy a brass ring.-?" Millennium, yes; "pandemonium"! Roy Campanella leaps high. Dodgerdom crowned, had Johnny Podres on the mound. Buzzie Bavasi and the Press gave ground; the team slapped, mauled, and asked the Yankees' match, How did you feel when Sandy Amoros made the catch? I said to myself-pitcher for all innings- as I walked back to the mound I said, 'Everything's getting better and better.' " (Zest, they've zest. 'Hope springs eternal in the Brooklyn breast.' And would the Dodger Band in 8, row 1, relax if they saw the collector of income tax? Ready with a tune if that should occur: Why Not Take All of Me-All of Me, Sir?) Another series. Round-tripper Duke at bat, Four hundred feet from home-plate; more like that. A neat bunt, please; a cloud-breaker, a drive like Jim Gilliam's great big one. Hope's alive. Homered, flied out, fouled? Our "stylish stout" so nimble Campanella will have him out. A-squat in double-headers four hundred times a day, he says that in a measure the pleasure is the pay: catcher to pitcher, a nice easy throw almost as if he'd just told it to go. Willy Mays should be a Dodger. He should- a lad for Roger Craig and Clem Labine to elude; but you have an omen, pennant-winning Peewee, on which we are looking superstitiously. Ralph Branca has Preacher Roe's number; recall? and there's Don Bessent; he can really fire the ball. as for Gil Hodges, in custody of first- He'll do it by himself. Now a specialist versed in an extension reach far into the box seats- he lengthens up, he leans, and gloving the ball defeats expectation by a whisker. The modest star, irked by one misplay, is no hero by a hair; in a strikeout slaughter when what could matter more, he lines a homer to the signboard and has changed the score. Then for his nineteenth season, a home run- with four of six runs batted in-Carl Furillo's the big gun; almost dehorned the foe-has fans dancing in delight. Jake Pitler and his Playground "get a Night"- Jake, that hearty man, made heartier by a harrier who can bat as well as field-Don Demeter. Shutting them out for nine innings-a hitter too- Carl Erskine leaves Cimoli nothing to do. Take off the goat-horns, Dodgers, that egret which two very fine base-stealers can offset. You've got plenty: Jackie Robinson and Campy and big Newk, and Dodgerdom again watching everything you do. You won last year. Come on. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE YANKEE PRIVATEER by ARTHUR HALE THE COMET AT YELL'HAM by THOMAS HARDY EPIGRAMS: BOOK I, 1 by MARCUS VALERIUS MARTIALIS HERE LIES A LADY by JOHN CROWE RANSOM SUNSET WINGS by DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI |