Humanities › Literature A Poetic Take on Baseball Share Flipboard Email Print Tetra Images/Getty Images Literature Poetry Favorite Poems & Poets Poetic Forms Best Sellers Classic Literature Plays & Drama Quotations Shakespeare Short Stories Children's Books By Bob Holman & Margery Snyder Bob Holman & Margery Snyder Poetry Experts B.A., English and American Literature, University of California at Santa Barbara B.A., English, Columbia College Bob Holman and Margery Snyder are nationally-recognized poets who have been featured on WNYC and NPR. Learn about our Editorial Process Updated on March 06, 2019 Baseball is the most literary of sports, bursting with metaphor, image, and rhythm, and poets have long recognized the symbolic parallels between a baseball game and the events of daily life from which their poems sprout. A baseball game tells a story inside the confines of its form, just as a poem does. Its balls and strikes, hits and outs, runs and innings are very like the echoes and rhymes, stresses and stops, lines and stanzas of a poem. Check out these Hall of Fame-worthy baseball poems, selected for reading while you’re watching a game. 'Casey at the Bat' by Ernest L. Thayer (1888) The outlook wasn’t brilliant for the Mudville nine that day:The score stood four to two, with but one inning more to play,And then when Cooney died at first, and Barrows did the same,A pall-like silence fell upon the patrons of the game ... 'Casey's Revenge' by Grantland Rice (1907) There were saddened hearts in Mudville for a week or even more;There were muttered oaths and curses —every fan in town was sore.“Just think,” said one, “how soft it looked with Casey at the bat,And then to think he’d go and spring a bush league trick like that!”... 'A Ballad of Baseball Burdens' by Franklin Pierce Adams (1912) Swat, hit, connect, line out, get on the job.Else you shall feel the brunt of fandom’s ireBiff, bang it, clout it, hit it on the knob —This is the end of every fan’s desire... 'The Crowd at the Ball Game' by William Carlos Williams (1923) The crowd at the ball gameis moved uniformlyby a spirit of uselessnesswhich delights them —... 'Cobb Would Have Caught It' by Robert Fitzgerald (1943) In sunburnt parks where Sundays lie,Or the wide wastes beyond the cities,Teams in grey deploy through sunlight .... 'Tao in the Yankee Stadium Bleachers' by John Updike (1958) Distance brings proportion. From herethe populated tiersas much as players seem part of the show:a constructed stage beast, three folds of Dante’s rose,or a Chinese military hatcunningly chased with bodies ... 'Dream of a Baseball Star' by Gregory Corso (1960) I dreamed Ted Williamsleaning at nightagainst the Eiffel Tower, weeping.He was in uniformand his bat lay at his feet— knotted and twiggy.“Randall Jarrell says you’re a poet!” I cried.“So do I! I say you’re a poet!”... 'Baseball and Writing' by Marianne Moore (1961) Fanaticism? No. Writing is excitingand baseball is like writing.You can never tell with eitherhow it will goor what you will do ... 'Baseball Canto' by Lawrence Ferlinghetti (1972) Watching baseball, sitting in the sun, eating popcorn,reading Ezra Pound,and wishing that Juan Marichal would hit a hole right through theAnglo-Saxon tradition in the first Cantoand demolish the barbarian invaders ... 'Analysis of Baseball' by May Swenson (1978) It’s aboutthe ball,the bat,and the mitt.Ball hitsbat, or ithits mitt.Bat doesn’thit ball, batmeets it.Ball bouncesoff bat, fliesair, or thudsground (dud)or itfits mitt ... 'The Night Game' by Robert Pinsky (1991) ... A night game, the silver potionOf the lights, his pink skinShining like a burn .... 'Baseball and Classicism' by Tom Clark (1992) Every day I peruse the box scores for hoursSometimes I wonder why I do itSince I am not going to take a test on itAnd no one is going to give me money ... 'The Seventh Inning' by Donald Hall (1993) 1. Baseball, I warrant, is not the wholeoccupation of the aging boy.Far from it: There are cats and roses;there is her water body ... Cite this Article Format mla apa chicago Your Citation Snyder, Bob Holman & Margery. "A Poetic Take on Baseball." ThoughtCo, Aug. 28, 2020, thoughtco.com/favorite-baseball-poems-2725523. Snyder, Bob Holman & Margery. (2020, August 28). A Poetic Take on Baseball. Retrieved from https://www.thoughtco.com/favorite-baseball-poems-2725523 Snyder, Bob Holman & Margery. "A Poetic Take on Baseball." ThoughtCo. https://www.thoughtco.com/favorite-baseball-poems-2725523 (accessed March 30, 2023). copy citation