PITCHING, PITCHING, PITCHING. SEPTEMBER DIVISION RACES

September 12, 2020 at 1:39 pm (A.C. Barnes, Akira Kurosawa, Aldous Huxley, Alexander the Great, Alfred Hitchcock, Amy Lowell, Andrew Marvell, Andy Warhol, Aristotle, Arthur Schopenhauer, Bach, Balzac, Basho, Beijing Waves, Ben Franklin, Ben Johnson, Berlin Pistols, Bertrand Russell, Billy Beane, Bob Hope, Bram Stoker, Byron, Cezanne, Chairman Mao, Charles Darwin, Chaucer, John Crowe Ransom, John D Rockeller, John Dewey, John Stuart Mill, Johnny Depp, Jonathan Swift, Plato, Poetry Baseball, Pushkin, William James, William Shakespeare, Winston Churchill)

Donald Trump, Xi Jinping and the Mao factor - CNN

Rally for the Beijing Waves—Mao’s team is tied for first in the Peoples Division with 10 games to go.

MODERN DIVISION—UNIVERSE HAS THE EDGE!

Universe 77 67  Manager Billy Beane Harriet Beecher Stowe and mid-season additions MLK Jr and Raymond Carver lead Spielberg’s club into first.
Buyers    73 71  Manager Charles Darwin The solid pitching of Twain, Freud, and Whitman stumbles, Paul Engle out, as Rockefeller’s team tumbles into second.
Crash     72 72   Manager Paul Cezanne Another losing streak from ace John Crowe Ranson; John Dewey digs deep and keeps Philadelphia and owner A.C. Barnes alive.
Printers  68 76  Manager Brian Epstein Warhol’s club did not have a reliable closer; Rothko, terrible, Marjorie Perloff fine, late addition Hans Holbein the Younger dominates, but is not enough.
Dreamers 67 77  Manager Averell Harriman Mid-season additions Jane Austen and Mary Wollstonecraft lift Pamela Harriman’s team, but mainstay Margaret Atwood never found her groove.

PEOPLES DIVISION—A FOUR TEAM RACE TO THE END!

Cobras 76 68 Manager Rupi Kaur Hermann Hesse and Rumi keep Satyajit Ray’s team in it, as Tagore and Gandhi falter; Kabir Das rebounds in relief.
Waves  76 68 Manager Jack Dorsey Voltaire and Rousseau finally start to win for Mao’s team, Confucius solid in bullpen; Lao Tzu and Lucretius slumping.
Gamers  75 69  Manager Bob Hope Merv Griffin’s club climbed from last to first, adding Charlie Chaplin, Woody Allen, and Muhammad Ali. Lewis Carroll and Democritus will be key.
Laws 73 71 Manager Moshe Rabbenu Dick Wolf’s team briefly alone in first as Aristotle no-hit Gamers, Horace won 4 straight, Saussure brilliant in relief, but suddenly Santa Barbara lost 11 straight.
Mist  58 86 Manager Eiji Yoshikawa Movie icon Kurosawa’s club most inconsistent in league. Recently played spoiler against the Laws, sweeping them in Tokyo. Haiku aces Basho and Issa big disappointments.

SOCIETY DIVISION—BOSTON SECRETS CLINCH DIVISION!

Secrets 91 53 Manager George Washington The pitching of Plato (23-7), Pushkin (18-4), and Poe (13-9) with great bullpen overpowers division as Benjamin Franklin’s team, with best record in league, romps.
Animals  77 67 Manager Walt Disney Ovid (18 wins, a no-hitter) proves himself a real ace, but no one knew Amy Lowell (21-4) would pitch like this. A.A. Milne solid in bullpen, poor season for Melville.
War  72 72 Manager Niccolo Machiavelli Jack London helped JP Morgan’s bullpen; Remarque, Walter Scott are horses, Hume, big disappointment, Shakespeare pitched hurt, now out for season.
Actors 61 83 Manager Johnny Depp Relief pitching of Sade and Gide a disaster—made aces Byron, Chaucer look worse than they were. Rumors are manager Johnny Depp drinking heavily.
Strangers  61 83 Manager Bram Stoker Kafka replacing Camus good move, but too little, too late; Lovecraft and Shirley Jackson ineffective in relief; Pope and Nietzsche out-dueled too many times.

GLORIOUS DIVISION—LAUREATES PULLING AWAY FROM BANNERS!

Laureates 87 57 Manager Ronald Reagan Jonathan Swift is 22-3, Livy has 12 wins in relief, and Robert Louis Stevenson has won 13 since replacing Thomas Peacock in June for Dublin. Second best record in league!
Banners  81 63  Manager Desiderius Erasmus Lorenzo de Medici’s team has no weaknesses, led by Shelley’s work on the mound. But Virgil missed a month in mid-season; Dante, da Vinci lack run support.
Carriages  70 74 Manager Prince Albert Andrew Marvell was 12-3, but 4-9 since; flashes of brilliance by Virginia Woolf, Hazlitt, Henry James, and Descartes (relief ace) has not been enough.
Sun   63 81 Manager Winston Churchill Ralph Emerson and Thomas Carlyle have lost too many games. Huxley and JS Mill, too. Ruskin, starter/reliever, brilliant at times, Bert Russell reliable in the pen.
Pistols 60 84 Manager Randolph Churchill Wagner gradually became Berlin’s bullpen ace; no. 4 starter position—Pound, and 3 replacements, not effective. TS Eliot great since May (0-5 in April), Santayana, William James, not.

EMPEROR DIVISION—CEILINGS AND CRUSADERS VIE FOR THE CROWN!

Ceilings 79 65 Manager Cardinal Richelieu The pitching of Milton (17-10), Dryden (5-0 since Aug 20), Ariosto (14-11) and Bach (10 wins in relief) might be enough for Rome.
Crusaders 77 67 Manager Miguel de Cervantes Beethoven has 13 wins since joining Madrid in June; Handel has won 19; Aquinas managed 10 wins before injury in August. Scarlatti added.
Goths 73 71 Manager Arthur Schopenhauer Since their successful home stand in July, Paris has lost 20 of 33; Goethe is 1-4 with 5.10 ERA in recent slide; only Wilde (15 wins since June 1) has kept them alive.
Codes 72 72 Manager Alexander the Great  Homer and Hegel have each won 16 for Napoleon; Cicero, Hesiod, Balzac have struggled; Kant, 12 wins in relief; Tolstoy added to bullpen; hard to believe they’re only a .500 team.
Broadcasters 63 81 Manager Tiberius Claudius Hard-throwing George Orwell, reliever/spot starter, is 12-10, Coleridge is 11-7, but Valery and Hitchcock in ‘pen, starters Leopardi, Nabokov, Lacan, and Ben Johnson, subpar.

~~~

Scarriet Poetry Baseball reporting

Leave a Comment

SCARRIET POETRY BASEBALL STATS

August 23, 2020 at 4:31 pm (Amy Lowell, anais nin, Anand Thakore, Andrew Marvell, Andy Warhol, Aphra Behn, Aristotle, Arthur Rimbaud, Arthur Schopenhauer, Baudelaire, Ben Mazer, Berlin Pistols, Bertolt Brecht, Bertrand Russell, Billy Beane, Billy Collins, Bob Dylan, Bob Hope, Bram Stoker, Carolyn Forche, da Vinci, Daipayan Nair, Dan Sociu, Dante, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Darwin, Delmore Schwartz, Devon Sun, Elizabeth Bishop, Fellini, G.W.F. Hegel, Garrison Keillor, Glyn Maxwell, Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, Goya, Hafiz, Harry Crosby, Harvey Weinstein, Jeet Thayil, John Cage, John Dewey, John Donne, John Ruskin, John Townsend Trowbridge, John Updike, Johnny Depp, JP Morgan, Judith Butler, Jules Laforgue, Keats, Khoemeini, Kolkata Cobras, Mao, Marcel Duchamp, Mark Twain, Mary Angela Douglas, Milton, Napoleon Bonaparte, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Nietzsche, Paul Engle, Paul Valery, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Picasso, Plato, Poetry Baseball, Rabelais, Rabindranath Tagore, Randall Jarrell, Randolph Churchill, Richard Wagner, Robert Browning, Robert Burns, Robert Frost, Robert Lowell, Sarah Teasdale, Sartre, Satyajit Ray, Scarriet Baseball Poetry League, Shakespeare, Sharon Olds, Stephanie Burt, Stephen Cole, steven spielberg, Wolfgang Mozart, Woody Allen)

Amazon.com: Woody Allen wearing a baseball uniform Photo Print (24 ...

The first place LA Gamers were in last place when they signed Woody Allen (7-2).

WINS

Rimini Broadcasters  Owner, Fellini, Manager Claudius, Motto, “Pleased to meet you, hope you guess my name.”  50-62, Fifth

Maurice Ravel 4-1
Samuel Coleridge 8-6
George Orwell 10-7
Jacques Lacan 6-5
Vladimir Nabokov 9-15
Giacomo Leopardi 6-10
Paul Valery 3-7
Alfred Hitchcock 1-5

Corsica Codes Owner, Napoleon Bonaparte, Manager, Alexander the Great, Motto “Let the more loving one be me” 57-55 Second

William Logan 3-1
Homer 13-6
Hegel 13-7
Kant 8-9
Balzac 8-11
Cicero 7-11
Hesiod 3-7
Edmund Wilson 2-3
Wislawa Szymborska 0-0

Madrid Crusaders  Owner, Philip II of Spain, Manager Christopher Columbus, Motto “If in my thought I have magnified the Father above the Son, let Him have no mercy on me.” 57-55 Second

Beethoven 9-2
Handel 14-4
Mozart 5-4
Thomas Aquinas 9-13
GK Chesterton 4-5
St. John of the Cross 4-5
George Berkeley 5-7
Plotinus 3-7
Scarlatti 2-2
Joan of Arc 1-0
Tolkien 1-2
Lisieux 0-3

Paris Goths Owner, Charles X, Manager, Arthur Schopenhauer, Motto “Every great enterprise takes its first step in faith.” 60-52 First

Francois Chateaubriand 16-7
Oscar Wilde 13-6
Johann Goethe 12-8
Goya 7-8
Thomas de Quincey 2-0
AW Schlegel 3-4
Gautier 2-4
Dostoevsky 1-1
Camille Paglia 0-2
Baudelaire 3-13

Rome Ceilings  Owner, Pope Julius II, Manager Cardinal Richelieu, Motto “They also serve who only stand and wait.” 60-52 First

GE Lessing 6-3
John Milton 12-7
Ludovico Ariosto 12-8
JS Bach 10-7
Augustine 10-9
John Dryden 8-10
Octavio Paz 1-1
George Gascoigne 1-4
Vivaldi 0-1

Berlin Pistols  Owner, Eva Braun, Manager Randolph Churchill, Motto “A life subdued to its instrument.” 49-63 Fifth

TS Eliot 12-10
William James 11-9
Richard Wagner 7-5
Rufus Griswold 4-3
George Santayana 4-9
Ezra Pound 3-4
Ernest Hemingway 3-8
Horace Greeley 3-6
Hugh Kenner 1-2
Wyndham Lewis 1-6

London Carriages  Owner, Queen Victoria, Manager, Prince Albert, Motto “Ours but to do and die.” 57-55 Third

Andrew Marvell 13-7
Henry James 11-10
Virginia Woolf 11-11
William Hazlitt 9-13
Charles Lamb 3-1
Descartes 3-2
Charlotte Bronte 3-2
Jeremy Bentham 3-9

Florence Banners Owner, Lorenzo de Medici, Manager, Erasmus, Motto “The One remains, the many change and pass.” 60-52 Second

Percy Shelley 15-7
Virgil 13-8
Leonardo da Vinci 10-8
Dante 11-10
Marsilio Ficino 2-1
Boccaccio 5-6
Sandro Botticelli 2-4
William Rossetti 1-3
Bronzino 0-2

The Devon Sun  Owner, PM Lord Russell, Manager, Winston Churchill, Motto “A good indignation brings out all one’s powers.” 51-61 Fourth

John Ruskin 7-3
Bertrand Russell 7-3
Aldous Huxley 11-9
Ralph Emerson 10-12
JS Mill 6-9
Thomas Carlyle 8-15
Henry Thoreau 2-6
Christopher Ricks 0-3

Dublin Laureates Owner, Nahum Tate, Manager, President Ronald Reagan, Motto “Luck is bestowed even on those who don’t have hands.” 64-48 First

Jonathan Swift 16-3
Livy 10-5
Pascal 6-2
Robert Louis Stevenson 9-3
Samuel Johnson 8-8
JD Salinger 2-1
Dana Gioia 2-1
Hans Christian Anderson 1-0
Robert Boyle 4-5
Thomas Peacock 2-7
Edmund Burke 3-9
Arthur Conan Doyle 0-0

Westport Actors  Owner, Harvey Weinstein, Manager, Johnny Depp, Motto “I am no hackney for your rod.” 48-64 Fourth

Chaucer 11-7
Petronius 10-10
Sade 8-8
George Byron 7-7
Norman Mailer 4-7
Richard Rorty 2-3
Henry Beecher 3-7
Andre Gide 1-4
Flaubert 0-6
Hugh Hefner 0-0
Erich Fromm 0-0

Virginia Strangers  Owner, David Lynch, Manager, Bram Stoker, Motto “So still is day, it seems like night profound.” 43-69 Fifth

Alexander Pope 11-9
HP Lovecraft 5-3
Franz Kafka 5-5
Robert Bloch 2-2
Friedrich Nietzsche 7-12
Salvador Dali 3-7
Samuel Beckett 3-9
Shirley Jackson 2-5
Albert Camus 2-11
Philip K Dick 1-3
Luis Bunuel 0-2
Antonin Artaud 0-3
Jean-Luc Godard 0-0

Connecticut Animals  Owner, PT Barnum, Manager, Walt Disney, Motto “Majesty and love are incompatible.” 60-52 Second

Amy Lowell 16-4
Jules Verne 14-9
Ovid 13-8
A.A. Milne 5-4
Melville 7-15
Robert Bly 2-5
Jose y Ortega Gasset 2-0
Gerard de Nerval 1-6
Christopher Hitchens 0-0

The New York War Owner, JP Morgan, Manager, Machiavelli, Motto “The fire-eyed maid of smoky war all hot and bleeding will we offer them.” 60-52 Second

Jack London 5-1
Erich Remarque 15-8
Walter Scott 12-6
William Shakespeare 11-7
Julius Caesar 4-4
Giordano Bruno 2-2
David Hume 9-13
Edward Gibbon 1-4
Richard Aldington 1-6

Boston Secrets Owner, Ben Franklin, Manager, George Washington Motto “We come in the age’s most uncertain hour and sing an American tune.” 71-41 First

Plato 18-6 -leads league
Pushkin 13-4
Edgar Poe 11-8
Moliere 10-9
Thomas Jefferson 5-1
James Monroe 4-2
James Madison 2-1
F Scott Fitzgerald 2-2
Alexander Hamilton 1-1
F Scott Key 4-7

Kolkata Cobras Owner, Satyajit Ray, Manager Rupi Kaur, Motto “Is it true that your love traveled alone through ages and worlds in search of me?” 58-54 Second

Gandhi 14-10
Rumi 13-8
Rabindranith Tagore 13-12
Hermann Hesse 8-10
Kabir Das 4-5
Nissim Ezekiel 2-0
Raja Rao 1-0
Faiz A Faiz 1-1
Krishnamurti 1-1
Kannada 1-2
Ramavtar Sarma 1-2
Acharya Shivapujan Sahay 0-1
Hoshang Merchant 0-1
Suryakant Tripathi 0-0
Sri Ramakrishna 0-0

The Tokyo Mist Owner, Kurosawa, Manager Eiji Yoshikawa, Motto “In Kyoto, hearing the cuckoo, I long for Kyoto.” 45-67 Fifth

Yukio Mishima 12-10
Yone Noguchi 9-9
Issa 10-14
Basho 7-11
Haruki Murakami 3-3
Kobe Abe 2-7
Takaaki Yoshimoto 1-1
Heraclitus 1-2
Murasaki Shikibu 1-3
DT Suzuki 0-5
Mitsuyo Kakuta 0-2

Beijing Waves Owner, Chairman Mao, Manager Jack Dorsey, Motto “Death gives separation repose.” 58-54 Second

Lao Tzu 15-7
Voltaire 14-9
Confucius 8-4
Lucretius 12-11
Rousseau 8-13
Lu Xun 1-0
Lenin 1-0
Khomeini 1-4
Friedrich Engles 0-1
Ho Chi Minh 0-3

Santa Barbara Laws Owner, Dick Wolf, Manager Moshe Rabbenu, Motto “In poetry everything is clear and definite.” 57-55 Third

Francis Bacon 13-11
Aristotle 11-10
Horace 10-12
Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. 8-9
Ferdinand Saussure 5-3
Mark Van Doren 4-2
Quintilian 3-3
Ring Lardner Jr. 1-0
Yvor Winters 1-1
ML Rosenthal 1-2
Frank Stella 0-1
Frederick Law Olmstead 0-1

Los Angeles Gamers, Owner Merv Griffin, Manager, Bob Hope, Motto “He thought he saw an elephant that practiced on a fife” 60-52 First

Menander 11-4
Woody Allen 7-2
Democritus 10-6
Lewis Carroll 11-10
Charlie Chaplin 5-3
James Tate 5-5
Christian Morgenstern 3-3
Clive James 2-1
EE Cummings 1-0
Muhammad Ali 1-0
Garrison Keillor 1-2
Derrida 1-7
Antoine de Saint Exupery 0-1
Charles Bernstein 0-4

Arden Dreamers Owner, Pamela Digby Churchill Harriman, Manager, Averell Harriman Motto  “Not the earth, the sea, none of it was enough for her, without me.” 50-62 Fifth

Mary Wollstonecraft 8-4
Margaret Atwood 11-10
Anais Nin 10-13
Jane Austen 4-2
Floyd Dell 4-4
bell hooks 2-1
Helene Cixous 2-1
Michael Ondaaatje 1-0
Jean-Paul Sartre 2-3
Louise Gluck 1-3
Simone de Beauvoir 2-6
Germaine Greer 2-8
William Godwin 1-4
Frida Kahlo 0-0
Diego Rivera 0-0

Manhattan Printers Owner, Andy Warhol, Manager, Brian Epstein, Motto “The eye, seeking to sink, is rebuffed by a much-worked dullness, the patina of a rag, that oily Vulcan uses, wiping up.” 52-60 Fourth

Hans Holbein (the Younger) 10-2
John Cage 6-2
Marcel Duchamp 7-7
Marjorie Perloff 8-13
Hilton Kramer 4-3
Toulouse Lautrec 3-2
Paul Klee 6-7
Guy Davenport 1-1
F.O. Matthiessen 3-4
RP Blackmur 2-4
Stephanie Burt 1-6
Mark Rothko 1-8

Chicago Buyers Owner, John D. Rockefeller, Manager, Charles Darwin, Motto “Have you no thought, O dreamer, that it may be all maya, illusion?” 61-51 First

Paul Engle 13-11
Mark Twain 12-7
Sigmund Freud 12-10
Walt Whitman 9-11
Helen Vendler 5-4
Judith Butler 3-2
J.L. Austin 2-3
WK Wimsatt 1-2
Monroe Beardsley 1-2
Thomas Hart Benton 0-0

The Philadelphia Crash, Owner, AC Barnes, Manager Cezanne, Motto “But for some futile things unsaid I should say all is done for us.” 55-57 Third

John Crowe Ransom 12-7
Pablo Picasso 7-3
John Dewey 12-10
Ludwig Wittgenstein 10-11
Walter Pater 8-11
Jackson Pollock 4-6
Walter Benjamin 1-0
Clement Greenberg 1-2
IA Richards 0-3
Kenneth Burke 0-1
Roger Fry 0-1

The Phoenix Universe, Owner Steven Spielberg, Manager, Billy Beane, Motto “I know why the caged bird sings.” 59-53 Second

Jean Cocteau 8-1
Raymond Carver 8-3
Czeslaw Milosz 7-2
Harriet Beecher Stowe 9-10
Martin Luther King Jr 5-4
Michel Foucault 4-3
Harold Bloom 5-6
Lucien Freud 4-5
Marge Piercy 3-5
Lionel Trilling 2-3
Eric Said 2-3
Randall Jarrell 3-6
Timothy Leary 0-0

HOME RUNS BY TEAM

EMPEROR DIVISION

Robert Burns Broadcasters 20
Anne Sexton Broadcasters 16
Rainer Maria Rilke Broadcasters 16
Jim Morrison Broadcasters 10
Mick Jagger Broadcasters 6
Gregory Corso Broadcasters 6

Victor Hugo Codes 29
WH Auden Codes 25
Jean Racine Codes 21
Wole Soyinka Codes 12
Derek Walcott Codes 8
Jules Laforgue Codes 6

Anne Bradstreet Crusaders 23
Aeschylus Crusaders 23
Mary Angela Douglas Crusaders 15
Joyce Kilmer Crusaders 10
Phillis Wheatley Crusaders 9
Saint Ephrem Crusaders 8

Sophocles Goths 25
Heinrich Heine Goths 21
Torquato Tasso Goths 14
Madame de Stael 8
Friedrich Holderlin Goths 7
Thomas Chatterton Goths 6
Dan Sociu Goths 3

Euripides Ceilings 20
Edmund Spenser Ceilings 14
William Blake Ceilings 8
Michelangelo Ceilings 8
John Milton Ceilings 7
Tulsidas Ceilings 5

GLORIOUS DIVISION

Yeats Pistols 29
James Joyce Pistols 22
Ted Hughes Pistols 18
John Quinn Pistols 12
DH Lawrence Pistols 9
Alistair Crowley Pistols 8
Ford Maddox Ford Pistols 5
T.S. Eliot Pistols 5

Henry Longfellow Carriages 22
Alfred Tennyson Carriages 18
Robert Browning Carriages 15
GB Shaw Carriages 11
Paul McCartney Carriages 11
Sylvia Plath Carriages 6
Elizabeth Barrett Carriages 5

Friedrich Schiller Banners 29
DG Rossetti Banners 19
John Keats Banners 14
Ben Mazer Banners 10
Stefan George Banners 9
Christina Rossetti Banners 8
Dante Banners 5
Glyn Maxwell Banners 4

William Wordsworth Sun 26
Matthew Arnold Sun 16
Rudyard Kipling Sun 16
Horace Walpole Sun 13
HG Wells Sun 11
Ralph Emerson Sun 8
Margaret Fuller Sun 5

Alexandre Dumas Laureates 24
Charles Dickens Laureates 24
Aphra Behn Laureates 18
JK Rowling Laureates 13
Sarah Teasdale Laureates 12
Ghalib Laureates 12
Boris Pasternak Laureates 8
Oliver Goldsmith Laureates 6
John Townsend Trowbridge Laureates 6

SOCIETY DIVISION

Thomas Nashe Actors 22
Hafiz Actors 19
Amiri Baraka Actors 10
Gwendolyn Brooks Actors 7
Leonard Cohen Actors 6
Johnny Rotten Actors 4
Marilyn Hacker Actors 3
Audre Lorde Actors 3

Francois Rabelais Strangers 22
Arthur Rimbaud Strangers 22
Theodore Roethke Strangers 18
Knut Hamsun Strangers 7
Mary Shelley Strangers 3

Edward Lear Animals 16
Wallace Stevens Animals 14
Seamus Heaney Animals 10
Lawrence Ferlinghetti Animals 8
Marianne Moore Animals 8
Jack Spicer Animals 7

Stephen Crane War 16
Harry Crosby War 15
Phillip Sidney War 11
Wilfred Owen War 11
Apollinaire War 10
James Dickey War 9
William Shakespeare War 5
Robert Graves War 5
Howard Nemerov  War 5

Robert Frost Secrets 24
Emily Dickinson Secrets 20
Woody Guthrie Secrets 13
Kanye West Secrets 10
Nathaniel Hawthorne Secrets 8
Cole Porter Secrets 6
Stephen Cole Secrets 5
Paul Simon Secrets 4
Edgar Poe Secrets 4

PEOPLES DIVISION

Vikram Seth Cobras 22
Jadoo Akhtar Cobras 21
George Harrison Cobras 20
Gajanan Muktibodh Cobras 10
Anand Thakore Cobras 9
Allen Ginsberg Cobras 8
Kalidasa Cobras 4
Jeet Thayil Cobras 4
Adil Jussawala Cobras 4
Daipayan Nair Cobras 3

John Lennon Mist 19
Hilda Doolittle  Mist 18
Sadakichi Hartmann Mist 16
Yoko Ono Mist 8
Haruki Murakami Mist 6
Gary Snyder Mist 5
Natsume Soseki  Mist 5

Li Po Waves 26
Tu Fu Waves 18
Karl Marx Waves 18
Li He Waves 6
Bertolt Brecht Waves 4

John Donne Laws 22
Thomas Hardy Laws 17
Martial Laws 13
Donald Hall Laws 7
Jane Kenyon Laws 6
Reed Whitmore Laws 6
Antonio Machado Laws 6
Walter Raleigh Laws 5

Eugene Ionesco Gamers 26
Billy Collins Gamers 25
Thomas Hood Gamers 17
Joe Green Gamers 8
Ernest Thayer Gamers 4
John Betjeman Gamers 4

MODERN DIVISION

Sharon Olds Dreamers 24
Edna Millay Dreamers 22
Louis MacNeice Dreamers 20
Jack Gilbert Dreamers 10
Stevie Smith Dreamers 9
Richard Lovelace Dreamers 8
Louise Bogan Dreamers 5
Carolyn Forche Dreamers 4

Aristophanes Printers 24
John Updike Printers 24
Garcia Lorca Printers 11
John Ashbery Printers 10
Andre Breton Printers 9
Lou Reed Printers 7
Hart Crane Printers 6
Christopher Isherwood Printers 5
Marcel Duchamp Printers 5
James Baldwin Printers 5

Elizabeth Bishop Buyers 30 —leads  league
Dylan Thomas Buyers 25
Robert Lowell Buyers 17
Edgar Lee Masters Buyers 8
Kenneth Rexroth Buyers 8
Walt Whitman Buyers 6
Robert Penn Warren Buyers 5
Duke Ellington Buyers 5

Allen Tate Crash 20
Stephen Spender Crash 19
Franz Werfel Crash 11
Donald Davidson Crash 8
Archilochus Crash 8
John Gould Fletcher Crash 6
John Crowe Ransom Crash 6
WC Williams Crash 3
Stanley Kunitz Crash 3

Bob Dylan Universe 24
Juvenal Universe 22
Paul Celan Universe 14
Anthony Hecht Universe 10
Delmore Schwartz Universe 9
Chuck Berry Universe 7
Maya Angelou Universe 7

~~~

Leave a Comment

SECRETS INCREASE LEAD, STRANGERS MAKE PITCHING CHANGES

July 2, 2020 at 11:26 pm (Bram Stoker, Byron, Emily Dickinson, Francis Scott Key, Harry Crosby, HP Lovecraft, John Prine, Johnny Depp, JP Morgan, Kanye West, Mary Shelley, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Paul Laurence Dunbar, Paul Simon, Plato, Pushkin, Robert Tonucci, Scarriet Baseball Poetry League, Seamus Heaney, Shakespeare, Stephen Cole, Wallace Stevens, Woody Guthrie)

Bram Stoker - IMDb

Bram Stoker, manager of the Strangers. “We’ve got to do something.”

~~~

Ben Franklin’s Boston Secrets 41 23 —
Harvey Weinstein’s Westport Actors 33 31 (8)
P.T. Barnum’s Fairfield Animals 31  33 (10)
J.P. Morgan’s New York War 31 33 (10)
David Lynch’s Virginia Strangers 26 38 (15)

~~~

Ben Franklin’s Boston Secrets are pulling away from the pack in the Society Division.

Emily Dickinson is hitting with power, and also hitting close to .400.  Dickinson, Robert Frost, and Woody Guthrie in the middle of the Secrets lineup have been relentless. Especially in the clutch. They are confident and clear-eyed, seeing right through any philosophical obscurities the opposing pitchers might bring. And every time one looks up, Nathaniel Hawthorne, the lead-off hitter, is on base, a statue in a dream.

The rest of the lineup: Cole Porter batting second, moves runners over, always making contact; Carl Sandburg handles everything hit his way at third; Paul Simon and Kanye West draw walks, and patrol their outfield positions with risk, recklessness, and brilliance.

George Washington, stolid in the dugout, sees everything, calmly watching, inspiring his players in an almost preternatural manner.

Washington is ably assisted by his coaching staff: Winfield Scott, JFK, Clarence Thomas.

The Secrets bench is deep: Washington Irving, James Fenimore Cooper, William Cullen Bryant, John Prine, Paul Laurence Dunbar, Bob Tonucci, Stephen Cole, Dolly Parton, Willie Nelson.

The pitching staff is doing its job.  Poe, Plato, Pushkin, and Moliere represent the scientific ingenuity, passion, and virtue of the artificial republic which Ben Franklin, owner of the Secrets, helped create, a method of society delicately balanced between loyalty and deal-making, a reality which not does not merely think—but out-thinks the enemies amassed around it.

Edgar Poe is 5-2 in his last 9 starts. He didn’t win his first game until the middle of May.  Plato has been good from the start, with 4 shutouts and a record of 11-4.  Pushkin is 8-1 and has only walked 10 batters in 121 innings. Moliere had a rough start to the season, but is 3-1 in his last 6 outings. The bullpen by committee is getting the job done: Francis Scott Key, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, James Monroe, and F. Scott Fitzgerald.

David Lynch’s Strangers are now fifteen games out of first.

Replacing Samuel Beckett (3-8) in the starting rotation will be Salvador Dali.

One can see why Camus might pitch for a team called the Strangers. But Camus is 2-11.

Camus will be dropped from the rotation in favor of Franz Kafka.

“Sometimes minimalism and existentialism work in sports competition, and sometimes they don’t.”

So David Lynch began his remarks announcing the changes—team moves Strangers fans are divided on. Many love Camus and Beckett. But the Strangers are in last place in the Society Division, and falling fast.

Bram Stoker, the Strangers manager, agreed it was time for a change.

“How restless I’ve felt, these last few weeks,” Stoker said. “I’ve struggled with these changes! How fast the summer is moving, a summer of poetry and philosophy in the misty shadows of the plunging blood red sun! How much longer can we stand this torture! Something must be done!”

Franz Kafka was brought on board a week ago, where he is 0-2 in relief for the Strangers, losing one run games to new bullpen aces for the Animals (A.E. Milne) and the War (Jack London). But Kafka showed he has the stuff, fanning 12 in the 7 innings he worked. Let’s see how he does as a starter.  This will leave a hole in relief, and the Strangers have had a shaky bullpen: H.P Lovecraft, Antonin Artaud, Robert Bloch, Philip K. Dick, Shirley Jackson.

The Strangers can hit. Power comes from the “PoweR BRotheRs”—Rimbaud, Rabelais, and Roethke. Theodore “Ted” Roethke just went on a tear, hitting 7 homers in 15 games—he now has 14, putting him among the Poetry League leaders. The lineup is good from top to bottom: Mary Shelley leading off, Fernando Pessoa batting second, then the 3 Rs, Paul Verlaine Weldon Kees, and Laura Riding, one of the best fielding shortstops in the league.

You can have a great lineup, but if your pitchers aren’t throwing strikes, no team can win.

Alexander Pope has won 7, and Nietzsche, 6—the no. 1 and 2 starter for the Strangers.  They will have to turn things up a notch if they’re going to catch the Secrets.

J.P. Morgan, who owns the War, was not expecting his nephew, the poet Harry Crosby, to hit home runs. He was just hoping he would hold down left field and get on base, occasionally.  But he’s belted 10 home runs, and may be moved up in the order—he currently bats seventh. The War trails the Secrets in the Society Division by 10 games. Stephen Crane, 359. 16 homers, is producing from the cleanup spot, but much more was expected from Philip Sidney (.224 4 homers) batting third. Apollinaire only has 5 homers and a .220 batting average batting fifth, and Rupert Brooke is striking out way too much in the lead-off spot.

Shakespeare, the War’s ace, has hit 4 homers, but in a terrible blow to the War’s fortunes, he will be out for 3 weeks, and up until now he only owns a 7-6 record with a 4.11 ERA.  The expectations were so high, and out there on the mound he sometimes uses comedy when he should use tragedy, a speech when he should use a song, a stage direction when he should use a dance. Walter Scott, as the War’s no. 2 starter is among the league’s leaders in wins (8), Erich Remarque, the no. 3 starter has won 7, but David Hume is 5-8.

Jack London (2-0 0.00 ERA) has just been signed to anchor the bullpen and may be what the War needs.  He joins RIchard Aldington, Edward Gibbon, and Giordano Bruno in the relief corps. Edward Gibbon will start a few games for the injured Shakespeare.

P.T. Barnum’s Animals are tied with the War for third. Wallace Stevens is finally starting to hit from the cleanup spot and Amy Lowell continues her amazing run; she lost her first game of the season just this week, when Moliere of the Secrets matched her pitch for pitch, strikeout for strikeout, until the bottom of the ninth when Paul Dunbar homered to win it for the Secrets, 1-0.  Amy gave Animals fans a scare when she winced in pain surrendering that home run—she will have to miss a start, but the doctors say it’s not serious. A.A. Milne has been added to the Animals bullpen, and he’ll pitch in Amy’s spot next week. Verne has won 8 games for the Animals, but Ovid and Melville have been struggling—much of it due to lack of run support; this lineup needs to do more, offensively—Jack Spicer, Edward Lear, Seamus Heaney, Stevens, Marianne Moore, Robinson Jeffers, Mary Oliver, and Larry Ferlinghetti.

That leaves Harvey Weinstein’s Actors, in second place, the closest team in the Society Division to the Secrets, at 8 games back. “They’re (the Secrets) too comfortable,” Actor manager Johnny Depp said; “we’ve got to put some pressure on them, let them know we’re here, make them look back.”

Norman Mailer replaced Henry Beecher in the starting rotation for the Actors, and dazzled in his first three starts (2-1 0.40 ERA). Petronius is starting to win (5-2 in his last 7 starts, including a 3-2 loss to Amy Lowell) and if streaky Byron and Chaucer can be more consistent (both have 3 shutouts), the Secrets can certainly be caught. Sade, Flaubert, Gide, and Richard Rorty have been good but not great in relief.

Thomas Nashe has 16 home runs for the Actors and Hafiz and Amiri Baraka have both hit 10. At the top of the Actors order, John Skelton and Langston Hughes will have to get on base more, if Westport is to really turn into an offensive machine.

Scarriet caught up to Lord Byron, pitching ace for Weinstein’s Actors, for a few words.

Scarriet: Hey, George, how’s it going?

Byron: Pardon?

Scarriet: Scarriet. May we get a quick interview?

Byron: Pardon? Oh (looking closer) Scarriet. Yes. Sorry. How are you?

Scarriet: What’s it been like to be in this league?

Byron: Like? Why does everyone use that word? It’s been wonderful. Yes, I enjoy it.

Scarriet: Do you like the States? The world, now?

Byron: No, yes. No. It’s vulgar. It’s too vulgar for me. Americans are intelligent, but they use their intelligence for all the wrong things. (Pause) They have no sense of—it’s hard to describe. Well, they’re all pigs, actually. There. I’ve said it. Is that alright?

Scarriet: Sure.

Byron: But I love this league. The game is great.

Scarriet: Your team isn’t exactly scoring a lot of runs when you pitch.  And you pitch against the best. Plato.

Byron: Oh God. He shut me out.

Scarriet: Pope.

Byron: He shut me out.  But then I got under his skin. I teased him.  He loses to me now. Three in a row.  The Strangers. We always beat them. We’re stranger than they are.

Scarriet: Shakespeare.

Byron: He’s on a lousy team. The War. The first time I faced him, I was nervous, and pitched badly, and he won. But now it’s alright. It was great. My best game when I beat him.

Scarriet: I remember. You struck out—

Byron: 13! 11?

Scarriet: You struck out 13 and—

Byron: I didn’t walk anybody. I was a beast.

Scarriet: You beat Shakespeare 1-0, and allowed 2 hits.

Byron: Two hits from a perfect game. Crosby, that snotty brat, got a hit.  And Philip. The great one. Sidney. A ground ball up the middle.

Scarriet: Ovid.

Byron: I shut him out twice! But then he beat me, 3-2. Just this week. I don’t like him. He’s vulgar. Poetry as sex advice! Really?

Scarriet: Will the Actors catch the Secrets?

Byron: I don’t care. Maybe, yes… I wish I played for the Secrets. Plato, Pushkin, Poe. Have you read Poe?  A master. How is it that Poe’s an American?  What happened to America? You guys are disgusting now.  I guess it’s bound to happen. Successful country. Too much leisure. The sellers crowding in. The modern world. Who could have imagined. Frightfully pleasurable. I must say. But the individual is what matters. I suppose. (pause) Good music. Fresh air. I’ve got to go now. Bye.

1 Comment