The Most Beautiful Words in the English Language
Pitchers and Catchers Report.
Baseball is God's Game. The Bible tells us so, that in the Big Inning, God created the Heaven and the Earth.
An Angel looked up to God and asked, "Padre, is this heaven?" and God said, "No, this is Iowa."
The Earth was void and God marked the land - white lines on fields of green and with a skin smoother than a baby's backside. He placed on this field diamonds of white, just 90 feet apart and in the 4th corner a welcoming place, a place where you start at and a place that you struggle and yearn to return to: home. And when the Prodigal Sons touch home there is a great celebration. Tigers roar and Cubbies growl and birds of all types sing - Cardinals, Orioles and Blue Jays, too.
And when the land was dark God looked down upon the fields of Crosley in the land of Cincinnati and said, "Let there be light!" And it was so, and they played in the fields of the Lord both day and night. And God saw that it was good.
Here, said the Lord God, should be a place and a game where a man is judged by the content of his statistics and not by the color of his Sox. But it was not to be and so He sent forth a righteous man, born in a place called Cairo, destined to lead his people, now free from the bondage of slavery, into the promised land of Brooklyn where he would slay both prejudice and the occasional Giant.
Today the journey begins again, first bathed in the sunshine of warmer climes and not to be finished until the chill of autumn air grips the land once more. The flowers appear on the earth; the time of the singing of the birds is come, and the voice of the turtle is heard in the land.
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Dec '11
Re: The Most Beautiful Words in the English Language
But it was not to be and so He sent forth a righteous man, born in place called Cairo, destined to lead his people, now free from the bondage of slavery, into the promised land of Brooklyn where he would slay both prejudice and the occasional Giant.
A hat tip to the great Jackie Robinson indeed, but what about those Damn Yankees?
Re: The Most Beautiful Words in the English Language
Beautiful indeed.
Re: The Most Beautiful Words in the English Language
Love this! Might frame it and hang it in my home.
Mar '11
Re: The Most Beautiful Words in the English Language
Very good.
Jun '11
Re: The Most Beautiful Words in the English Language
Thanks EJ. Cheerful and uplifting words one day after learning that Pope Benedict XVI is rounding third and heading for home.
PS, glad you mentioned Crosley inasmuch as it is fairly indisputable that God is a Reds fan.
Edited on February 12, 2013 at 3:27pmMar '11
Re: The Most Beautiful Words in the English Language
The burden of hard hitting. Slug away
Like Honus Wagner or like Tyrus Cobb.
Else fandom shouteth: “Who said you could play?
Back to the jasper league, you minor slob!”
Swat, hit, connect, line out, get on the job.
Else you shall feel the brunt of fandom’s ire
Biff, bang it, clout it, hit it on the knob—
This is the end of every fan’s desire.
The burden of good pitching. Curved or straight.
Or in or out, or haply up or down,
To puzzle him that standeth by the plate,
To lessen, so to speak, his bat-renoun:
Like Christy Mathewson or Miner Brown,
So pitch that every man can but admire
And offer you the freedom of the town—
This is the end of every fan’s desire.
The burden of loud cheering. O the sounds!
The tumult and the shouting from the throats
Of forty thousand at the Polo Grounds
Sitting, ay, standing sans their hats and coats.
A mighty cheer that possibly denotes
That Cub or Pirate fat is in the fire;
Or, as H. James would say, We’ve got their goats—
This is the end of every fan’s desire.
(cont.)
Mar '11
Re: The Most Beautiful Words in the English Language
The burden of a pennant. O the hope,
The tenuous hope, the hope that’s half a fear,
The lengthy season and the boundless dope,
And the bromidic; “Wait until next year.”
O dread disgrace of trailing in the rear,
O Piece of Bunting, flying high and higher
That next October it shall flutter here:
This is the end of every fan’s desire.
ENVOY
Ah, Fans, let not the Quarry but the Chase
Be that to which most fondly we aspire!
For us not Stake, but Game; not Goal, but Race—
THIS is the end of every fan’s desire.
--Franklin Pierce Adams
Jul '12
Re: The Most Beautiful Words in the English Language
Pittsburgh Pirates 2013 World Series Champs!
Jun '11
Re: The Most Beautiful Words in the English Language
Percival: The burden of a pennant. O the hope,
The tenuous hope, the hope that’s half a fear,
The lengthy season and the boundless dope,
And the bromidic; “Wait until next year.”
O dread disgrace of trailing in the rear,
O Piece of Bunting, flying high and higher
That next October it shall flutter here:
This is the end of every fan’s desire.
ENVOY
Ah, Fans, let not the Quarry but the Chase
Be that to which most fondly we aspire!
For us not Stake, but Game; not Goal, but Race—
THIS is the end of every fan’s desire.
--Franklin Pierce Adams
Well, I think it goes without saying that Mr. Adams was a Cubs fan.
Mar '11
Re: The Most Beautiful Words in the English Language
Colin B Lane
Well, I think it goes without saying that Mr. Adams was a Cubs fan. · 3 minutes ago
Actually, he was a Giants fan in a period where the Cubs regularly frustrated the Giants.
Also by Mr. 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."
Jul '10
Re: The Most Beautiful Words in the English Language
Only four months til the Mets are eliminated!
May '10
Re: The Most Beautiful Words in the English Language
Franklin Pierce Adams, the legendary F.A.P. of "The Conning Tower" in various New York papers, baseball poet and launcher of some of the wittier careers in American literature. Said Dorothy Parker, "He raised me from a couplet."
Like Tinkers, Evers and Chance, he, too, was once a formidable member of a formidable trio - the regular panelists on the most intelligent game show ever devised, Information Please! For 13 seasons across the networks of NBC, CBS and Mutual, F.A.P. dueled with fellow journalist John Kiernan and musical genius Oscar Levant while host Clifton Fadiman somehow got them to play the game.
We should revive that show for Ricochet.
Re: The Most Beautiful Words in the English Language
I'd curse you out right now for defaming my beloved team - if this weren't true. :-(
Edited on February 13, 2013 at 4:56amJun '11
Re: The Most Beautiful Words in the English Language
The title says it all, Brother Hill. But then you revive the verse that the great Ernie Harwell recited at the beginning of the first spring training game each year... I got shivers, EJ.
That turtledove is calling. Play ball!
Jul '12
Re: The Most Beautiful Words in the English Language
2013... The Year of the Tiger
Thank God that Baseball is back!!!
Jul '10
Re: The Most Beautiful Words in the English Language
Tommy De Seno
I'd curse you out right now for defaming my beloved team - it this weren't true. :-( · 16 minutes ago
We're in the same boat, brother. I've about worn out my Gooden t-shirt waiting for another trophy.
May '10
Re: The Most Beautiful Words in the English Language
As a credentialed member of the media I am prohibited from seeking autographs. The only two I ever sought out as an adult were from non-players - Sparky Anderson, who taught me the game and the beauty of the triple-negative, and one William Earnest Harwell, whose Southern charm and gentlemanly ways made him a legend in our business of broadcasting.
Harwell has the distinction of being the only announcer acquired in a trade (the Dodgers sent catcher Cliff Dapper to the Atlanta Crackers of the Southern League in 1948 when Brooklyn needed someone to fill in for the ailing Red Barber) and the man who called Bobby Thompson's "Shot Heard 'Round the World" on NBC television and of which there is no surviving copy.
(BTW - Both signed baseballs now belong to my son.)
Edited on February 12, 2013 at 6:13pmJan '11
Re: The Most Beautiful Words in the English Language
EJ, not to dispel any mystery, but do you get to cover baseball?
Aug '12
Re: The Most Beautiful Words in the English Language
Wonderful for thee, but not for me, sayeth a fan of the Chicago Cubs (61-101 in 2012).
Sep '11
Re: The Most Beautiful Words in the English Language
Huh, they're still playing baseball. How quaint.
My dismissiveness of the sport has nothing to do with the sorry state of my Mets, I assure you.