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...CHAUCERS WORDES UNTO ADAM, HIS OWN SCRIVEYN by GEOFFREY CHAUCER SEA POPPIES by HILDA DOOLITTLE THE UNPARDONABLE SIN by NICHOLAS VACHEL LINDSAY AN ESSAY ON MAN by ALEXANDER POPE IN SCHOOL-DAYS by JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER THAT GENERAL UTILITY RAG, BY OUR OWN IRVING BERLIN by FRANKLIN PIERCE ADAMS |