GAME FIVE RESULTS

October 6, 2020 at 5:45 pm (Alice Walker, Chuck Berry, Dante, Edgar Allan Poe, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Heather McHugh, James Whitcomb Riley, Joe Green, John Keats, Jonathan Swift, Kanye West, Lewis Caroll, Maya Angelou, Paul Simon, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Plato, Poetry Baseball, Rod McKuen)

A Look at The Unknown and Controversial Photography Career of Lewis Carroll
Revenge. Lewis Carroll blanks the Laureates in Game 5

GAMERS 2 LAUREATES 0

Two teams were on the brink: the LA Gamers and the Boston Secrets. The Gamers were at home in Los Angeles, down 3-1, and called on their ace throughout the season, Lewis Carroll (17-13, 3.04).

Before a raucous, insulting, Dublin crowd, Carroll suffered a 9-4 loss in Game 1. His opponent again, in Game 5, was the fearless ace of the Laureates, Jonathan Swift (22-5 2.80).

Lewis Carroll allowed six hits, struck out four, and walked one, as he blanked the Dublin Laureates, 2-0. A throwing error by Dublin’s Rod McKuen allowed James Whitcomb Riley and Heather McHugh of the Gamers to score in the bottom of the 8th inning—for the only runs of the game. Jonathan Swift was dominating, as he has been all year, perhaps more so, as he struck out 18 hitters, including Billy Collins four times. The ninth inning was almost a disaster for the Gamers. Dublin’s Oliver Goldsmith singled to open the inning. After Carroll retired Dumas and Dickens, Aphra Behn singled and Colley Cibber walked. Boris Pasternak then hit a slow grounder to the left of the mound, and it looked like everyone was going to be safe. Goldsmith was heading for home, Joe Green, the Gamers third baseman, was going after the ground ball, as was Carroll, off the mound. Noel Coward, the shortstop, raced to cover third, just ahead of Aphra Behn, and yelled for the ball, and Carroll somehow scooped up the grounder which had almost come to a stop, and in a gasp of heated and exhausted despair, flipped the ball to Coward, who had to reach for it awkwardly, running full tilt, and Coward was able to graze Behn with his glove for the final out. The Gamers are alive, but they’re going back to Dublin, down 3-2.

SECRETS 6 BANNERS 1

Edgar Poe, Game 1 loser for the Secrets, like Lewis Carroll, saved his team from elimination yesterday. Both Poe and Carroll are known for their mathematical minds, and both throw a great variety of pitches. Poe throws hard, has a slow, mocking breaking pitch, and throws change-ups quite frequently, while using the geometry not only of home plate but the space occupied by the hitter.

The Secrets lost to Dante Alighieri 4-1 in Game 1 in Boston. Had Dante, the ace of the Banners, beat them here in Florence, the Secrets’ season (with the best record in the league) would have been over.

Poe struck out 9 and held the Banners to one run (a home run by John Keats) as the Secrets won in Florence, 6-1.

Paul Simon homered and tripled, knocking in 5 runs for the Secrets. Kanye West added an RBI single.

The Secrets need to win the next two in Boston to advance. Plato and Pushkin are scheduled to face Shelley and Virgil.

UNIVERSE 1 CRUSADERS 0

The Phoenix Universe have beaten Beethoven for the second time as they take the lead in the series, 3-2. Harriet Beecher Stowe shut out the Madrid Crusaders and Maya Angelou knocked in Alice Walker for the game’s only run. Chuck Berry climbed the fence in left field to take a home run away from the Crusaders’ Anne Bradstreet in the ninth. Beecher Stowe had 5 shut outs during the regular season, with a 2.79 ERA. She struck out 10 on the way to her 1-0 win in Game 5. Beethoven fanned 14, but is now 0-2 in the series. Beecher Stowe is 2-0, the only starter who kept her job throughout the season, as Steven Spielberg replaced Harold Bloom, Randall Jarrell, and Marge Piercy with Lucien Freud, Raymond Carver, and Martin Luther King, Jr. The series now returns to Madrid, where the Crusaders will go with Mozart and Thomas Aquinas (if necessary). The Universe, who need one more win, will counter with Lucian Freud and Raymond Carver.

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THE PLAYOFFS

September 30, 2020 at 2:36 pm (Anne Bradstreet, Beethoven, Ben Franklin, Ben Mazer, Billy Beane, Billy Collins, Cole Porter, Dante, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Delmore Schwartz, E. Poe, Glyn Maxwell, JK Rowling, Joe Green, John Betjeman, John Keats, Jonathan Swift, Kanye West, LA Gamers, Mary Angela Douglas, Merv Griffin, Nahum Tate, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Paul Simon, Philip Levine, Poetry Baseball, Robert Frost, Ronald Reagan, Sara Teasdale, Scarriet Baseball Poetry League, Thomas Hood)

Sir Noel Coward (1899-1973) - Find A Grave Memorial

Noel Coward, the Gamers shortstop, relaxing before Game One in Dublin against the Laureates.

Welcome to the first game of the Scarriet Poetry Baseball Playoffs, and Boston, Massachusetts, home of the Society Division champions, Ben Franklin’s Secrets, managed by George Washington, with the best record in the league. The Secrets take on the Florence Banners, the Wild Card Team who finished second in the Glorious Division with a solid 89 and 65 record, in a best of seven series, two in Boston, three in Florence, two in Boston (if necessary).

Here are the line ups and starters for the first game in Boston.

Florence Banners
Motto: “The One remains, the many change and pass.”
Owner Lorenze de Medici, Manager Desi Erasmus, Pitching Coach Pope Leo X
Game One Starter: Dante Alighieri

1. Ben Mazer CF .272
2. Christina Rossetti LF .281
3. John Keats 2B .279
4. Friedrich Schiller 1B .254
5. Guido Cavalcanti 3B .271
6. Thomas Moore SS .291
7. DG Rossetti RF .280
8. Glyn Maxwell C .246
9. Dante Alighieri P 17-12 3.39

Boston Secrets
Motto: “We come in the age’s most uncertain hour and sing an American tune.”
Owner B Franklin, Manager G Washington, Pitching Coach Clarence Thomas
Game One Starter: Edgar Allan Poe

1. Nathaniel Hawthorne CF .273
2. Cole Porter 1B .297
3. Emily Dickinson C .278
4. Woody Guthrie 2B .265
5. Robert Frost SS .275
6. Carl Sandburg 3B .295
7. Paul Simon RF .270
8. Kanye West LF .267
9. Edgar Allan Poe P 14-12 3.10

~~~

Here are the other two Playoff games, and lineups:

Welcome to Dublin, Ireland, where the Glorious Division champs host the Peoples Division champs, the LA Gamers!

LA Gamers
Motto: “He thought he saw an elephant that practiced on a fife.”
Owner Merv Griffin, Manager Bob Hope, Pitching Coach Lorne Michaels
Game One Starter: Lewis Carroll

1. Noel Coward SS .317
2. John Betjeman CF .325
3. Billy Collins LF .284
4. Eugene Ionesco C .279
5. Thomas Hood 2B .272
6. Joe Green 3B .261
7. Tristan Tzara 1B .267
8. Ogden Nash 3B .268
9. Lewis Carroll P 17-13 3.04 ERA

Dublin Laureates
Motto: “Luck is bestowed even on those who don’t have hands.”
Owner Nahum Tate, Manager Ronald Reagan, Pitching Coach Arthur Guinness
Game One Starter: Jonathan Swift

1. Sarah Teasdale 2B .313
2. Oliver Goldsmith CF .275
3. Alexandre Dumas LF .338
4. Charles Dickens 1B .359
5. Aphra Behn RF .262
6. Mirza Ghalib 3B .254
7. Boris Pasternak C .242
8. JK Rowling SS .228
9. Jonathan Swift P 22-5 2.80 ERA

~~

Welcome to Spain, where the Madrid Crusaders, champions of the Emperor Division host the Phoenix Universe, the Modern Division champs, in game one of the first round of the playoffs.

Phoenix Universe
Motto: “I know why the caged bird sings”
Owner Steven Spielberg, Manager Billy Beane, Pitching Coach Tom Hanks
Game One Starter: Harriet Beecher Stowe

1. Chuck Berry 3B .377
2. Maya Angelou C .316
3. Bob Dylan 2B .252
4. Decimus Juvenal RF .260
5. Paul Celan SS .249
6. Delmore Schwartz CF .247
7. Philip Levine LF .231
8. Anthony Hecht 1B .229
9. Harriet Beecher Stowe P 14-15 2.83

Madrid Crusaders
Motto: “If in my thought I have magnified the Father above the Son, let Him have no mercy on me.”
Owner Philip II, Manager Miguel Cervantes, Pitching Coach Christopher Columbus
Game One Starter: Ludwig Van Beethoven

1. Gerard Manley Hopkins CF .281
2. Hilaire Belloc C .280
3. Anne Bradstreet 3B .373
4. Aeschylus CF .253
5. Mary Angela Douglas SS .300
6. Joyce Kilmer RF .265
7. Phillis Wheatley LF .252
8. Countee Cullen 1B .245
9. Beethoven P 14-5 2.22

And away we go!

 

 

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SOCIETY DIVISION CHAMPS: BOSTON SECRETS

September 26, 2020 at 10:17 pm (Amy Lowell, Ben Franklin, Emily Dickinson, Herman Melville, Jules Verne, Kanye West, Ovid, Plato, POE, Poetry Baseball, PT Barnum, Pushkin, Robert Frost)

Kim Kardashian WEST Takes Home Woman of the Year at the GQ Awards

Kanye West, .267 batting avg. and 15 homers as left fielder for the Boston Secrets

When you have two starting pitchers, like Plato (25-8) and Pushkin (19-5), each with 5 shutouts, it would be shocking if you didn’t run away with the title. This is what Ben Franklin’s Boston Secrets did, winning the Society Division (some call it the Secret Society Division) by 14 games over the second place Connecticut Animals, owned by P.T. Barnum.

The poor Animals. Amy Lowell finished with a 22-5 record, and 4 shutouts, and Ovid added 19 wins and 5 shut outs—surely this team should have at least made the playoffs! The Animals third-best pitcher, Jules Verne, won 15, and Poe, third-best pitcher for the Secrets, won 14. But the Animals had a low team batting average, didn’t have a very good bullpen (AA Milne became their go-to guy when he joined the club in July,) not a lot of team speed, had lapses on defense, and Animals starter Herman Melville lost 21 games.  The Secrets ran well, fielded well, hit a little better, and their “Founding Father” bullpen was solid.

The Secrets also had great team chemistry. Kanye West: “I love my teammates…Plato is the most amazing guy. Poe is hard to talk to. I love Eddie, though. He’s real quiet, but you can tell he’s thinking all the time. Paul Simon made me feel at home, in his quiet way. Pushkin. Pushkin doesn’t sit still. He’s like me. He shares what he knows about poetry. Everyone talks poetry after the game. I don’t know if I belong on this team. I don’t know what I’m doing. I don’t know how I hit home runs. Pushkin told me, ‘You only have to know it right now—even as you forget it, so don’t worry about what you know. Ever.’ I said, man, I want to write that down, after he said that. Maybe it doesn’t make sense. It made sense to me. I borrowed a piece of paper from Moliere. Bobby [Robert Frost] gave me a pen. Pushkin laughed. ‘You writing this down?’ Emily [Dickinson] gave me a pencil. Bobby’s pen didn’t work. We all made fun of Bobby because his pen didn’t work. I pretended to be in agony, because the damn pen didn’t work. (laughing) Emily was so glad she had a pencil for me. This team is the best.”

The Secrets are the first seed, so they will play the wild card team, the Florence Banners, in round one of the playoffs.

Secrets 95 59  Winner Owner Ben Franklin, Manager George Washington, Team Leaders: Frost 31 homers, Cole Porter .297, Hawthorne 35 SB, Plato 25-8, Plato 2.21 ERA

Animals 81 73  Owner, PT Barnum, Manager Walt Disney, Edward Lear 25, Seamus Heaney .322, Jack Spicer 16 SB, Amy Lowell 22-5, Amy Lowell 2.79

War     78 76  Owner JP Morgan, Manager Niccolo Machiavelli, Philip Sidney 24, Rupert Brooke .352, Rupert Brooke 37 SB, Remarque 18-12, Walter Scott 3.01

Strangers 67 87  Owner David Lynch, Manager Bram Stoker, Rimbaud 33, Mary Shelley .318, Mary Shelley 24 SB, Pope 15-12, Nietzsche 3.89

Actors  66 88  Owner Harvey Weinstein, Manager Johnny Depp, Hafiz 28, Hafiz .297, Skelton 25 SB, Chaucer 15-11, Chaucer 3.36

 

 

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SCARRIET POETRY BASEBALL ALL-STAR-BREAK STANDINGS AND STATS!

July 13, 2020 at 1:39 pm (Elizabeth Bishop, Emily Dickinson, Ezra Pound, Francois-Rene Chateaubriand, G.W.F. Hegel, Garcia Lorca, Garrison Keillor, George Bernard Shaw, George Harrison, George Washington, Goya, Hafiz, Hans Holbein, Heinrich Heine, Hilda Dolittle, Homer, J.S. Bach, James Joyce, James Tate, Jean-Paul Sartre, Jim Morrison, John Ashbery, John Crowe Ransom, John D Rockeller, John Dewey, John Donne, John Gould Fletcher, John Keats, John Ruskin, John Stuart Mill, John Updike, Jonathan Swift, JP Morgan, Kanye West, Karl Marx, Kolkata Cobras, Lao Tzu, Leonardo da Vinci, Li Po, Longfellow, Lord Byron, Lucien Freud, Ludovico Ariosto, Mao, Marcel Duchamp, Mark Twain, Martin Luther King, Mary Angela Douglas, Mick Jagger, Mozart, Muhammad Ali, Nahum Tate, Napoleon Bonaparte, Paul Celan, Paul McCartney, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Picasso, Plato, Queen Victoria, R. Jarrell, Rabindranath Tagore, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Ravel, Richard Wagner, Robert Browning, Robert Frost, Robert Lowell, Rousseau, Rumi, Salvador Dali, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Scarriet Baseball Poetry League, Shakespeare, Sharon Olds, Stephen Spielberg, T.S.Eliot, Theodore Roethke, Thomas Carlyle, Thomas Nashe, Victor Hugo, Vikram Seth, Virginia Woolf, W Churchill, W.H.Auden, William Blake, William Butler Yeats, William James, William Wordsworth, Wittgenstein, Woody Allen, Woody Guthrie, Yone Noguchi)

An Essay on Modern Education-Jonathan Swift-1740 – Advocatetanmoy ...

Swift. The Dublin Laureates are only 2 games out of first in the Glorious Division—thanks to his 12-1 record.

MODERN DIVISION

NEW YORK BUYERS ROCKEFELLER  43 37 –
PHOENIX UNIVERSE SPIELBERG   42 38 (1)
MANHATTAN PRINTERS WARHOL 40 40 (3)
PHILADELPHIA CRASH BARNES 36 44 (7)
ARDEN DREAMERS HARRIMAN 36 44 (7)

WINS

Hans Holbein Printers 5-1
Marcel Duchamp Printers 6-2
Mark Twain Buyers 11-6
Paul Engle Buyers 10-7
Margaret Atwood Dreamers 9-6
John Crowe Ransom Crash 7-5

Relief

Pablo Picasso Crash 9-3
Jean Cocteau Universe 3-0
Czeslaw Milosz Universe 5-2
John Cage Printers 5-2

HOME RUNS

Elizabeth Bishop Buyers 22
Sharon Olds Dreamers 19
Aristophanes Printers 19
John Updike Printers 19
Dylan Thomas Buyers 18
Edna Millay Dreamers 17
Juvenal Universe 15
Bob Dylan Universe 14
Robert Lowell Buyers 14
Louis MacNeice Dreamers 14
Stephen Spender Crash 14
Paul Celan Universe 11
Garcia Lorca Printers 10

The closest race in the league is the dogfight in the Modern Division between Rockefeller’s Buyers (who once led by a wide margin) and Spielberg’s Universe—a game apart, and the Printers are only 2 games away from the Universe. Robert Lowell has been hot at the plate for the Buyers, Bob Dylan for the Universe. Pitching-wise, Mark Twain has been hot again for the Buyers (and leads the division in wins), and Raymond Carver (replacing Randall Jarrell in the rotation) has been hot for the Universe (4-2). MLK Jr is 3-2 in his 8 starts since joining the Universe, and Spielberg has added Jean Cocteau (3-0) to the bullpen, a move he feels will put the Universe over the top. But Andy Warhol’s Printers made moves, too. Hans Holbein the Younger joined the rotation, and is 5-1. Paul Klee is a new lefty starter (3-3). Toulouse Lautrec (3-2) filled in admirably for the injured Duchamp (a toilet fell on his toe). Aristophanes and John Updike have both slammed 19 homers for manager Brian Epstein and his Printers. John Ashbery, who has seven homers from the lead off spot, and is one of the best fielding third basemen in the league, predicted the Printers would win it all. “Why shouldn’t I say that?” he asked. The Crash and the Dreamers, tied for last, are not that far out (seven games) and so every team is truly in the hunt in this division. John Crowe Ransom of the Crash did not win his first game until the end of May, and now at 7-5 he’s among the pitching leaders. John Dewey is 3-0 in July, Wittgenstein and Pater are 2-1 in July. Has the moment arrived for the Crash? Picasso has won 9 games for the Crash in relief. Franz Werfel has replaced the injured John Gould Fletcher in left, and has already begun hitting homers. Stephen Spender leads the Crash in that category. Stevie Smith, playing for the hurt Louis MacNeice, clubbed four homers for the Dreamers, and the home run power of Edna Millay (17) and Sharon Olds (19) has been on display all year for Pamela Harriman’s club. MacNeice himself has 14. The Dreamers have been doing everything they can to fix their bullpen (Germaine Greer has been a huge disappointment) but relief pitching is a tricky affair. Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera have joined the team, but all sorts of off-the-field issues have resulted in not much action—a blown save by Kahlo.  Jean Paul Sartre, however, has gone right to work—he’s 2-3 in relief in some very close games. As for the starting rotation, William Godwin pitched well but went 1-4 filling in for Simone de Beauvoir (2-7), losing to Ransom 4-3 on her first start back. Mary Wollstonecraft has joined the Dreamers and is 3-1 in 8 starts. Anais Nin is 8-8. Margaret Atwood has regained her early season form, and is 9-6. Don’t count out the Dreamers!

PEOPLES DIVISION

KOLKATA COBRAS S. RAY 47 33 –
SANTA BARBARA LAWS DICK WOLF 41 39 (6)
BEIJING WAVES MAO 39 41 (8)
TOKYO MIST KUROSAWA 36 44 (11)
LA GAMERS MERV GRIFFIN 35 45 (12)

WINS

Jalal Rumi Cobras 11-3
Rabindranith Tagore Cobras 11-7
Mahatma Gandhi Cobras 10-6
Lao Tzu Waves 10-6
Yukio Mishima Mist 9-6
Yone Naguchi Mist 8-5
Oliver Wendell Holmes Laws 8-6

Relief

Confucius Waves 7-2
Mark Van Doren Laws 4-1
Menander Gamers 6-3

 

HOME RUNS

John Donne Laws 18
Vikram Seth Cobras 18
Li Po Waves 17
Jadoo Akhtar Cobras 16
John Lennon Mist 15
Billy Collins Gamers 15
Hilda Doolittle Mist 15
George Harrison Cobras 14
Eugene Ionesco Gamers 14
Thomas Hardy Laws 14
Karl Marx Waves 13
Tu Fu Waves 13
Sadakitchi Hartmann Mist 11

The Kolkata Cobras have 3 good hitters and 3 good pitchers, and a six game lead in the Peoples Division. Vikram Seth is tied with the division lead in homers with 18, Jadoo Akhtar has 16 round-trippers, and George Harrison, 14 (though Harrison strikes out way too much). We could also mention Allen Ginsberg of the Cobras, batting .301 with 7 homers. The three big starters for the Cobras are Rumi, Tagore, and Gandhi. Kabir Das has improved in the bullpen; the Cobras have been healthy, and don’t plan on any big moves. The Laws, in second place, are also healthy; they added Ferdinand Saussure to their relief corps, but otherwise are staying with the team they’ve had since the beginning, and has arrived at the all star break 2 games over .500: Martial, Donne, and Thomas Hardy with 40 homers in the middle of the lineup, Aristotle, their ace who was hot, but lost 4 straight as they hoped to close in on the Cobras, Bacon, 10-4 since going 0-5 to start the season, Horace 4-2 in the last 5 weeks, and Oliver Wendell Holmes, pitching well, but not getting run support lately, as is the case with Aristotle. Donne is the only one hot at the plate right now. The Waves are 8 back, and slipping a bit lately, as Lao Tzu has been their only consistent pitcher; Confucius made a big splash in the beginning of the year, winning all sorts of late inning games—he’s just 1-0 in the last 5 weeks; Voltaire and Rousseau continue to disappoint. Tu Fu and Karl Marx have cooled off at the plate somewhat. Brecht and Neruda are not hitting. “The whole team has dropped off,” Jack Dorsey, the Waves manager said, “and it’s time we get back in this. We have an amazing team.” The Tokyo Mist got a boost when Yukio Mishima (9-6) replaced Heraclitus, and Yone Naguchi has quietly compiled an 8-5 record, but the two top starters for the Mist, Basho and Issa, have been a study in frustration. Issa gets no run support; Basho’s ERA is too high. Haruki Murakami (2-1) may be the bullpen ace they need, but it’s too early to tell. The Mist would love to have some of relief pitcher Kobe Abe’s (2-7) losses back. The Mist are not really hitting right now. John Lennon and Hilda Doolittle lead the team with 15 homers apiece—but most of those were hit in May. The Mist are a game out of last place—occupied by the LA Gamers. Billy Collins is probably the hottest hitter for the Gamers right now, which isn’t saying much; he has 15 dingers (We can imagine Collins writing a poem on the word ‘dinger’) and Ionesco is right behind him on the team with 14. Collins, the left fielder, and Joe Green, the third baseman, came within an inch of a nasty collision chasing a pop foul down the left field line last week. “We almost lost 20 homers,” manager Bob Hope said. And maybe 20 errors. Collins has been a circus in the field. If a last place team is going to make a run, it will be the Gamers. Merv Griffin’s club has added the following to their pitching staff—Democritus (5-5) is now starting for E.E. Cummings. Charlie Chaplin (2-1) is now starting for Garrison Keillor (1-2), who replaced James Tate (5-5).  Woody Allen (2-2) has replaced Antoine de Saint Exupery (0-1), who replaced Derrida (1-6). Muhammad Ali (2-1) and MC Escher, a lefty relief specialist, have joined the Gamers bullpen, which has been mostly patrolled by Menander (3-2) and Morgenstern (2-2). Charles Bernstein is 0-4. Clive James joined recently, and is 1-1. Gamers fever is still high!

SOCIETY DIVISION

BOSTON SECRETS BEN FRANKLIN 51 29 —
NEW YORK WAR JP MORGAN 42 38 (9)
WESTPORT ACTORS WEINSTEIN 40 40 (11)
FAIRFIELD ANIMALS PT BARNUM 38 42 (13)
VIRGINIA STRANGERS DAVID LYNCH 31 49 (20)

WINS

Alexander Pushkin Secrets 10-1
Amy Lowell Animals 11-2
Plato Secrets 13-5
Walter Scott War 11-5
George Byron Actors 7-4
Moliere Secrets 8-5
Chaucer Actors 8-5
Erich Remarque War 10-7
Alexander Pope Strangers 8-7
Gaius Petronius Actors 8-7

Relief

Thomas Jefferson Secrets 4-1
HP Lovecraft Strangers 4-2
Sade Actors 6-4

Home Runs

Emily Dickinson Secrets 19
Thomas Nashe Actors 18
Theodore Roethke Strangers 18
Stephen Crane War 16
Hafiz Actors 14
Arthur Rimbaud Strangers 14
Robert Frost Secrets 14
Harry Crosby War 13
Francois Rabelais Strangers 11
Wallace Stevens Animals 11
Woody Guthrie Secrets 11
Seamus Heaney Animals 10
Amiri Baraka Actors 10

Ben Franklin’s Secrets own the best record in the league (51-29) and have the biggest division lead (9 games). Pushkin and Plato have nearly half the Secrets wins, while Moliere, their fourth starter, has a nifty 8-5 mark, as Poe, their ace continues to struggle (6-7)—but most of it is due to low run support. Poe threw his first shutout right before the all star break. The Secrets’ Emily Dickinson leads the Society Division with 19 homers; Frost has 14, Woody Guthrie 11, and Kanye West leads the team in homers over the last couple of weeks; he now has 7, as does Nathaniel Hawthorne, the Secrets lead off hitter (.299, 9 stolen bases, 6 triples). With a solid, Founding Father, bullpen, the Secrets have no real weaknesses, and Boston has got to feel happy about the way things are going—although manager George Washington never looks happy. The second place War are 4 games over .500, have been getting good starts from Walter Scott and Erich Remarque, and manager Machiavelli is hoping Shakespeare (7-7) will come back stronger after his rehab (newly signed Julius Caesar is 2-2 with a shutout in his absence). The War’s Stephen Crane leads JP Morgan’s club with 16 homers, and Harry Crosby has been a surprise with 13. Jack London is new in the Wars bullpen, which has been shaky. The two Connecticut teams, Harvey Weinstein’s Actors (Byron and Chaucer their best pitchers, Nashe and Hafiz their best hitters) and PT Barnum’s Animals (Amy Lowell 11-2 the only star so far; they’ve added AA Milne in the bullpen) have some catching up to do, eleven and thirteen games back, respectively. Norman Mailer (3-3) is a new pitcher for the Actors.  Finally, the Strangers. They are 20 games out. David Lynch and manager Bram Stoker made a big move and got Franz Kafka. He’s 0-2 in relief and 0-6 as a starter. Salvador Dali is new, and he’s 1-2, stepping in for Becket (3-8). The Strangers ace, Alexander Pope, is either brilliant or so-so; he has 4 shutouts, but he’s 8-7. Theodore Roethke has cracked 18 homers for the Strangers (Rimbaud has 14, Rabelais has 11) but the team strikes out too much and hits into too many double plays. Twenty games out in this division may be too big a climb for David Lynch’s Strangers. Manager Bram Stoker merely stared at us coldly when we mentioned this.

GLORIOUS DIVISION

FLORENCE BANNERS DE MEDICI 46 34 —
DUBLIN LAUREATES NAHUM TATE 44 36 (2)
LONDON CARRIAGES QUEEN VICTORIA 43 37 (3)
BERLIN PISTOLS EVA BRAUN 34 46 (12)
DEVON SUN JOHN RUSSELL 34 46 (12)

WINS

Jonathan Swift Laureates 12-1
John Ruskin Sun 6-1
Andrew Marvell Carriages 12-3
Virgil Banners 10-4
Percy Shelley Banners 11-5
William James Pistols 9-5
Leonardo da Vinci Banners 8-4
Virginia Woolf Carriages 9-8

Relief

Livy Laureates 9-3
Bertrand Russell Sun 6-3
Richard Wagner Pistols 5-3

HOME RUNS

William Yeats Pistols 25
Friedrich Schiller Banners 18
Charles Dickens Laureates 18
Henry Longfellow Carriages 17
William Wordsworth Sun 17
Aphra Behn Laureates 17
James Joyce Pistols 15
Ted Hughes Pistols 14
Alexandre Dumas Laureates 13
Robert Browning Carriages 13
Arthur Tennyson Carriages 11
DG Rossetti Banners 11
HG Wells Sun 10
Matthew Arnold Sun 10
GB Shaw Carriages 10

Right now the Glorious Division is a 3 team race—the Banners, led by the bat of Friedrich Schiller (Keats is finally starting to hit a little) and a great starting rotation, led by Virgil and Shelley, are in first. But right behind the Banners are the Laureates, who now have Pascal (3-1) and Robert Louis Stevenson (4-1) in their starting rotation to go with Jonathan Swift (12-1), and they’ve picked up JD Salinger and Hans Christian Anderson in relief, just in case they need them. Charles Dickens, Aphra Behn, and Alexandre Dumas are smashing homers for Nahum Tate’s Dublin club, who were playing quite well even before they made these changes. Watch out for the Laureates. Some see them as a populist joke. Especially since they’ve added Pascal, and with the way Swift is pitching, they are not. The Carriages are in third, and in the thick of it, too. Paul McCartney has smashed 9 homers from the lead off spot (and is batting .340), George Bernard Shaw has clubbed 10 off the bench, and then you have Tennyson, Browning, and Longfellow belting out 41 between them in the middle of the order. Andrew Marvell (12-3) is London’s towering ace, but after that, including the bullpen, the pitching is thin. To remedy a weak bullpen, they just added Descartes. In limited use, Charlotte Bronte and Charles Lamb haven’t been too bad in relief. Virginia Woolf (9-8) has tossed a lot of innings as their no. 2 starter. If the Carriages keep hitting (and they do win on the road) they can take this thing. The Devon Sun and Berlin Pistols, tied for last at 34 and 46, and 12 games out of first, have pretty good bullpens (Bertrand Russell anchors the Sun pen, Richard Wagner, the Pistol’s) they can hit the ball out of the park (Yeats, Joyce, and Ted Hughes for the Pistols, Wordsworth, HG Wells and Matthew Arnold for the Sun) but starting pitching is their doom. The Pistols’ T.S Eliot lost his first five starts and has battled back to 9-9. The Pistols’ Ezra Pound began the year at 1-3, including losses of 27-3, 24-7, and 22-14. Pound was replaced by Hemingway (0-2) and then Horace Greeley (3-6). Maybe they will try Pound, again. The moody William James is the Pistols best starter. He’s 9-5.  After Santayana won 3 in a row in May, he can’t win. The Sun’s woes are similar. Emerson is 6-10. John Stuart Mill (4-6)—spelled by Ruskin, the Sun’s best pitcher so far—Aldous Huxley (6-8), and Thomas Carlyle (5-10) have been no better than Emerson. Ruskin, who helps Thoreau and Russell in the bullpen, has 4 shutouts (his phenomenal run when he briefly replaced Mill); the rest of the staff has one (Emerson). Maybe it’s time to put Ruskin back in the starting rotation. “I will pitch where the manager [Winston Churchill] wants me to pitch,” said Ruskin. Churchill, and the Sun’s owner, John Russell, likes Emerson, Mill, Huxley, and Carlyle. So we’ll see.

 

EMPEROR DIVISION

Rome Ceilings Pope Julius II  44 36 —
Paris Goths Charles X  41 39 (3)
Corsica Codes Napoleon Bonaparte 41 39 (3)
Madrid Crusaders Philip II 40 40 (4)
Rimini Broadcasters Fellini 38 42 (6)

WINS

Francisco Goya Goths 7-2
Ludovico Ariosto Ceilings 9-4
George Orwell Broadcasters 7-3
Homer Codes 10-5
GWF Hegel Codes 9-5
George Friderik Handel Crusaders 8-4
Francois-Rene de Chateaubriand Goths 10-6
Samuel Taylor Coleridge Broadcasters 6-4
John Milton Ceilings 8-7
Oscar Wilde Goths 7-6
Wolfgang Goethe Goths 7-6

Relief

Maurice Ravel Broadcasters 4-0
JS Bach Ceilings 9-5

HOME RUNS

WH Auden Codes 20
Anne Bradstreet Crusaders 19
Sophocles Goths 19
Heinrich Heine Goths 18
Victor Hugo Codes 18
Aeschylus Crusaders 16
Euripides Ceilings 14
Mary Angela Douglas Crusaders 13
Rainer Maria Rilke Broadcasters 12
Robert Burns Broadcasters 12
Jean Rancine Codes 12
Edmund Spenser Ceilings 11
Torquato Tasso Goths 10
Anne Sexton Broadcasters 10

The Ceilings still lead the Emperor Division, with a 3 game lead over the recently surging Goths—tied for last not long ago. The Ceilings once invincible starting pitching has faltered, and they look human and beatable. Milton went 7 straight trips to the mound without a win; Dryden got hurt and has only won once since early June; Augustine is win-less in his last nine starts; Ariosto, however, continues to pitch well, Bach is still a miracle in the bullpen, and Euripides and Blake are hitting and scoring runs. Goya came out of the pen where he was 3-0 and has won 4 as a starter for the Goths, replacing Baudelaire (2-9) in the rotation.  Thomas de Quincey is a recent bullpen acquisition. Tasso, playing for the hurt Ronsard, has 10 homers, adding to the melancholy duo of Sophocles (19) and Heine (18) for the Goths. W.H. Auden has smashed a division-leading 20 for Napoleon’s Codes, 41-39—like the Goths, and Homer (10-5) and Hegel (9-5) have emerged as their lethal starting duo. In a tight division race, Madrid’s Crusaders (4 games out) and the Remini Broadcasters (6 games behind) are in striking distance. The Crusaders, a .500 team for a while now, are being lifted by music: Handel (8-4) leads the team in wins; Mozart (3-2) and Beethoven (4-1) who joined the team in June, hope to eventually push them over the top. Joan of Arc is the new lefty in the bullpen. The Crusaders have plenty of pop with Anne Bradstreet (19 homers), Aeschylus (16 homers) and Mary Angela Douglas (13 homers)—the contemporary poet who won a starting job off the bench—replacing an injured Saint Ephrem at shortstop—when she starting hitting homers. The Broadcasters are Fellini’s team, and this currently last-place team is difficult to define: Rilke and Burns lead them in homers, Mick Jagger leads them in stolen bases, Jim Morrison leads them in doubles, Anne Sexton leads them in batting average, George Orwell, who is both starter and reliever, leads them in wins, Samuel Taylor Coleridge is their best starting pitcher right now, and Maurice Ravel is slowly becoming a star in the bullpen. “The musicians are beginning to change Scarriet Poetry Baseball,” Ravel said. “A memorable phrase of music is just a good as an epigram.”

 

 

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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.

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SCARRIET POETRY BASEBALL—HERE WE GO!

April 12, 2020 at 10:54 am (A.C. Barnes, A.E. Housman, Adil Jussawalla, Alan Seeger, Aldington, Aldous Huxley, Aleister Crowley, Alexander Pope, Alfred Tennyson, Alice Walker, Allen Ginsberg, Allen Tate, Amelia Welby, Amiri Baraka, Amy Lowell, anais nin, Anand Thakore, Andre Gide, Andrew Marvell, Andy Warhol, Anne Sexton, Anne Waldman, Aphra Behn, Aristotle, Arthur Rimbaud, Audre Lorde, Basil Bunting, Baudelaire, Ben Franklin, Ben Johnson, Ben Mazer, Bertolt Brecht, Billy Collins, Bob Dylan, Boccaccio, Byron, Camille Paglia, Carl Phillips, Carl Sandburg, Carolyn Forche, Catullus, Charles Bernstein, Charles Bukowski, Charles Dickens, Charles Simic, Christopher Isherwood, Christopher Marlowe, Chuck Berry, Claudia Rankine, Cole Porter, Czeslaw Milosz, D.H.Lawrence, da Vinci, Daipayan Nair, Dante, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Delmore Schwartz, Derek Walcott, Donald Hall, Donald Justice, Dorothy Parker, Dylan Thomas, E.E. Cummings, Edgar Allan Poe, Edmund Burke, Edmund Wilson, Edna Millay, Elizabeth Barrett, Elizabeth Bishop, Emerson, Emma Lazarus, Erich Remarque, Ezra Pound, Ford Madox Ford, Francis Scott Key, Frank Bidart, Frank O'Hara, Fred Seidel, Friedrich Schiller, G.E. Lessing, Garcia Lorca, Gary Snyder, Geoffrey Hill, George Harrison, George Santayana, Gerald Stern, Gertrude Stein, Glyn Maxwell, Goethe, Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, Gregory Corso, H Bloom, Hafiz, Harold Bloom, Harriet Monroe, Harry Crosby, Hart Crane, Heinrich Heine, Helen Vendler, Henry David Thoreau, Heraclitus, Herman Melville, Hilda Dolittle, Homer, Horace, Howard Nemerov, HP Lovecraft, Jack Kerouac, Jack Spicer, James Joyce, James Merrill, James Tate, Jeet Thayil, Jim Morrison, Joe Green, John Ashbery, John Berryman, John Betjeman, John Crowe Ransom, John Dewey, John Dryden, John Gould Fletcher, John Kerry, John Lennon, John Milton, Jonathan Swift, Jorie Graham, Joy Harjo, JRR Tolkien, Jules Laforgue, Kanye West, Karl Marx, Kay Ryan, Kenneth Koch, Khomeini, Lao Tzu, Larry Levis, Longfellow, Louis Simpson, Louise Bogan, Madame De Stael, Mao, Marcel Duchamp, Margaret Atwood, Margaret Fuller, Marilyn Chin, Marilyn Hacker, Marjorie Perloff, Mark Rothko, Mark Twain, Marla Muse, Mary Angela Douglas, Mary Oliver, Mary Shelley, Matthew Arnold, Maya Angelou, Michelangelo, Mick Jagger, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Nietzsche, Noel Coward, Ogden Nash, Oscar Wilde, Ovid, Pablo Neruda, Paul Engle, Paul Laurence Dunbar, Paul McCartney, Paul Simon, Pete Seeger, Petrarch, Philip Larkin, Philip Levine, Plato, Poetry Baseball, Pushkin, R.H. Horne, Randall Jarrell, Richard Howard, Richard Wagner, Rimbaud, Robert Bly, Robert Browning, Robert Burns, Robert Creeley, Robert Frost, Robert Graves, Robert Herrick, Robert Lowell, Robert Penn Warren, Robert Southey, Rod McKuen, Rousseau, Rudyard Kipling, Rumi, Rupert Brooke, Rupi Kaur, Samuel Beckett, Samuel Johnson, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Sappho, Sara Teasdale, Scarriet Baseball Poetry League, Seamus Heaney, Shakespeare, Sharon Olds, Sigmund Freud, Simone de Beauvoir, Stanley Kunitz, Stephen Burt, Stephen Cole, Stephen Crane, Stephen King, steven spielberg, Sylvia Plath, T.E. Hulme, T.S.Eliot, Ted Hughes, Thomas Carlyle, Thomas Hardy, Thomas Hood, Tishani Doshi, Tony Hoagland, Victor Hugo, Vikram Seth, Virgil, Virginia Woolf, Vladimir Nabokov, Voltaire, W.H.Auden, W.S. Merwin, Wallace Stevens, Walt Whitman, Walter Pater, Wendell Berry, William Alexander Percy, William Blake, William Burroughs, William Butler Yeats, William Carlos Williams, William Cullen Bryant, William Logan, William Wordsworth, Wittgenstein, Woody Guthrie, Wyndham Lewis, X.J. Kennedy, Yoko Ono, Yvor Winters)

Lord Byron In Albanian Dress - 1813 Painting by War Is Hell Store

George Byron in a pensive mood, before taking part in the opening day Scarriet baseball ceremonies.

Happy Easter!

Scarriet has expanded and restructured its baseball league!!

Gone the 2 leagues of 20 teams led by 20 American poets—Eliot, Pound, Frost, Poe, Williams, Stevens, Moore, Dickinson, Millay, Jorie Graham, Ginsberg, Ransom, Cummings, Whittier, Whitman, Bryant, Longfellow, James Lowell, Ashbery, and Emerson.

Now poets like Emerson, Eliot and Poe can be player/managers—to contribute to their teams both at the plate and in the field.

The field is more international—Scarriet Poetry Baseball is now 25 historical teams from all over the world.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The gods and muses must be pleased with our ten years of Poetry March Madness and our first Poetry Baseball season, where poetry is worshiped through time and space in a manner which no one has ever seen.

Fortunately one of the Muses has always been here to help us, Marla Muse.

Marla Muse: They are indeed pleased, Tom!

You have spoken to the other muses who live in other realms, in those shadowy timeless realms where time is one and poetry lights up suns distantly—

Marla Muse: Yes, and they approve! The stars in the heavens love you more than you know… I would rather die than see poetry die.

This baseball season is different. Mysterious and wealthy owners throughout time and space are bidding, some in secret, for players to fill their rosters.

In the Great Emperor League, we have the Broadcasters. Their motto is “Pleased to meet you, hope you guess my name” and they feature Mick Jagger, Jim Morrison, Gregory Corso, Anne Sexton, Bobby Burns, Omar Khayyam, Rilke, Coleridge, Leopardi, Anacreon, Sappho, and Ingrid Jonker.  They are rumored to be owned and funded by a business group led by Federico Fellini, and their ballpark is in Rimini, Italy.

These ballclubs are timeless, in every sense of the word (these teams compete, with actual statistics, where chance unfolds out of space, out of time) but real money, blood money, purchases these players.  We know JP Morgan, for instance, wanted Shakespeare and bid heavily to get him.

The Pistols, who play in Berlin, are said to be associated with Eva Braun, but this cannot be confirmed; one older muse claims to have overheard Eva say, “I take care of this. Adolf is too busy talking to bankers and architects. He doesn’t have time for poetry.” But honestly we cannot say who owns the Pistols.

Nahum Tate, owner of the Laureates, for those who do not know, re-wrote a popular King Lear with a happy ending (after Shakespeare’s death when, for a long period, the Bard was out of fashion,) and was chosen as Poet Laureate of England in 1692. 

Dick Wolf produces Law & Order on television, and appears to have a controlling interest in the Laws, playing out of Santa Barbara.  He’s got Aristotle, Lord Bacon, and Horace.

John Rockefeller opened his purse to get Walt Whitman, and he thinks that will be enough to win a championship.  We don’t know.  We do know baseball is all about pitching.  All you need is a few good arms which dominate, defense behind them, and some clubhouse chemistry, and not too many injuries. It’s a crap shoot, in many ways, and this is why Rockefeller grumbled he wasn’t going to waste money on superstars who hit home runs and have a high batting average. He’s probably right.  A team that wins 2-1 is better than a team that wins 7-4, by pure mathematics, even though the former score wins by 1 and the latter by 3 runs. It’s the ratio that counts.  2-1 = 2. 7-4 = 1.7  This simple reason is why defense wins in every sport. Rockefeller is using this formula, and the oil baron was also advised that you can’t buy a pennant—throwing money at sluggers doesn’t do any good; it’s 90% pitching and luck. Just put a a poet with critical depth on the hill and three good versifiers in the infield and sit back.

Some of the rosters might have some question marks, but that’s what happens in a free market.  It’s an historical fact that Longfellow did meet Queen Victoria in person. But no one expected him to play for her!

And W.H. Auden just “wanted to play for Napoleon, I don’t why.”

Marla Muse: I can’t wait for the season to begin!  Spring is in the air! Around Rome, and in those still fairer isles… Let’s forget about plagues and the starvation for awhile. Songs are going to sing.

Here then, are the Teams, their Mottoes, and the preliminary rosters—they are always changing (there’s a big minor leagues!)

~~~~~~

THE GREAT EMPEROR LEAGUE

Federico Fellini, Rimini  The Broadcasters [Pleased to meet you, hope you guess my name]
-Mick Jagger, Sappho, Gregory Corso, Charles Bukowski, Paul Valery, Anne Sexton, Omar Khayyam, Robert Burns, Ben Jonson, Coleridge, Jim Morrison, Edmund Waller, Nabokov, Rilke, Giacomo Leopardi, Anacreon, Ingrid Jonker, Swinburne

Napoleon, Corsica The Codes [Let the more loving one be me]
-W.H. Auden, Homer, Hesiod, Racine, John Peale Bishop, Edmund Wilson, Mina Loy, William Logan, Irving Layton, Villon, Jean-Baptiste Tati-Loutard, Wole Soyinka, Jules Laforgue, Derek Walcott, Callimachus, Cicero, Marcus Aurelius

King Philip II, Madrid The Crusaders [If in my thought I have magnified the Father above the Son, let Him have no mercy on me]
-Saint Ephrem, G.K. Chesterton, Tolkien, Thomas Aquinas, Hilaire Beloc, John Paul II, Saint Theresa of Lisieux, Joyce Kilmer, Saint John of the Cross, Mary Angela Douglas, Anne Bradstreet, Phillis Wheatley, Countee Cullen, Gerard Manley Hopkins, Aeschulus

Charles X, Paris  The Goths [Every great enterprise takes its first step in faith]
-A.W. Schlegel, Baudelaire, Goethe, Oscar Wilde, Walter Pater, Madame de Stael, Chateaubriand, Sophocles, George Herbert, Heinrich Heine, Robert Herrick, Clement Marot, Ronsard, Saint-Beuve, Catulus, Thomas Gray, John Clare, Thomas Lovell Beddoes, Theophile Gautier

Pope Julius II, Rome  The Ceilings [They also serve who only stand and wait]
-Milton, Michelangelo, William Blake, Robert Lowell, Petrarch, G.E. Lessing, John Dryden, Klopstock, GE Horne, Ferdowsi, Ariosto, Luis de Camoens, Swift, Tulsidas, Edmund Spenser, Kwesi Brew, Pindar, Euripides

~~~~~

THE GLORIOUS LEAGUE

Eva Braun, Berlin The Pistols [A life subdued to its instrument]
-Ted Hughes, Gertrude Stein, T.S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, W.B. Yeats, Ford Madox Ford, James Joyce, Hugh Kenner, Wyndham Lewis, DH Lawrence, Alistair Crowley, George Santayana, F.T. Marinetti, Giacomo Balla, Richard Wagner, Jung

Queen Victoria, London The Carriages [Theirs but to do and die]
-Lord Tennyson, Elizabeth Barrett, Robert Browning, Longfellow, Philip Larkin, Sylvia Plath, Hazlitt, Paul McCartney, Geoffrey Hill, Henry James, Andrew Marvel, John Suckling, Virginia Woolf, Theocritus

Lorenzo de’ Medici, Florence The Banners [The One remains, the many change and pass]
-Percy Shelley, Dante, William Rossetti, Christina Rossetti, DG Rossetti, John Keats, Marlowe, Guido Cavalcanti, Glyn Maxwell, Ben Mazer, Friedrich Schiller, Thomas Moore, Philodemus, Virgil, Stefan George, Boccaccio, Leonardo da Vinci

P.M. Lord John Russell, 1st Earl Russell, Devon The Sun [A good indignation brings out all one’s powers]
-Emerson, Horace Walpole, Thomas Carlyle, Thoreau, Wordsworth, Rudyard Kipling, Aldous Huxley, Matthew Arnold, Sir John Davies, Margaret Fuller, Robert Southey, Marilyn Chin, Joy Harjo, Basil Bunting, Marjorie Oludhe Macgoye

Nahum Tate, Dublin  The Laureates [Luck is bestowed even on those who don’t have hands]
-Ghalib, Samuel Johnson, Charles Dickens, Peacock, Leigh Hunt, Victor Hugo, Alexandre Dumas, Sara Teasdale, Pasternak, Louis Simpson, Dana Gioia, Oliver Goldsmith, Edmund Burke, Aphra Behn, Rod McKuen, JK Rowling

~~~~~

THE SECRET SOCIETY LEAGUE

Harvey Weinstein, Westport CT The Actors [I am no hackney for your rod]
-John Skelton, Langston Hughes, Henry Ward Beecher, Chaucer, Amiri Baraka, Lord Byron, Hafiz, Thomas Nashe, Marilyn Hacker, Petronius, Gwendolyn Brooks, Jim Carroll, Lucille Clifton, Etheridge Knight, Audre Lorde, Jimmy Page, Andre Gide

David Lynch, Alexandria VA  The Strangers [So still is day, it seems like night profound]
-Jones Very, Alexander Pope, William Burroughs, Rimbaud, Verlaine, Robert Graves, Laura Riding, Weldon Kees, Berryman, Mary Shelley, Rabelais, Charles Simic, Eric Satie, Labid, Roethke, Camille Paglia, HP Lovecraft, Nietzsche, Samuel Beckett

P.T. Barnum, Fairfield CT  The Animals [Majesty and love are incompatible]
-Ovid, Gerald Stern, Robinson Jeffers, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Seamus Heaney, Jack Spicer, Kay Ryan, Leslie Scalapino, Mary Oliver, W S Merwin, Melville, Camille Saint Saens, Edward Lear, Marianne Moore, Wallace Stevens, Gerard de Nerval, Robert Bly

J.P. Morgan, Madison Avenue  The War [The fire-eyed maid of smoky war all hot and bleeding will we offer them]
-Shakespeare, Louis Untermeyer, Apollinaire, T.E. Hulme, Richard Aldington, Rupert Brooke, Sir Walter Scott, Philip Sidney, James Dickey, Harry Crosby, Keith Douglas, Wilfred Owen, Howard Nemerov, Stephen Crane, Erich Remarque, Alan Seeger

Ben Franklin  Philadelphia  The Secrets [We come in the age’s most uncertain hour and sing an American tune]
-Paul Simon, Paul Laurence Dunbar, Edgar Poe, Emily Dickinson, Robert Frost, F. Scott Key, Cole Porter, Plato, Hawthorne, Pushkin, Walter Raleigh, Moliere, William Cullen Bryant, Amy Lowell, Emma Lazarus, Carl Sandburg, Pete Seeger, Natasha Trethewey, Amelia Welby, Woody Guthrie, JD Salinger, John Prine, Kanye West, Stephen Cole, Bob Tonucci

~~~~~

THE PEOPLE’S LEAGUE

Sajyajit Ray, Calcutta The Cobras [Is it true that your love traveled alone through ages and worlds in search of me?]
-Tagore, Allen Ginsberg, Jeet Thayil, Rupi Kaur, Anand Thakore, Dhoomil, G.M. Muktibodh, Rumi, A.K. Ramanujan, Samar Sen, Daipayan Nair, R. Meenakshi, Faiz Ahmad Faiz, Hermann Hesse, Persius, George Harrison, Adil Jussawalla, Tishani Doshi, Sushmita Gupta, Vikram Seth

Kurosawa,  Tokyo  The Mist [In Kyoto, hearing the cuckoo, I long for Kyoto]
-Basho, Hilda Doolittle, Robert Duncan, Gary Snyder, Philip Whalen, D.T. Suzuki, Yone Noguchi, Yoko Ono, John Lennon, Kobayashi Issa, Lady Izumi Shikibu, Cid Corman, Sadakichi Hartmann, Heraclitus, Richard Brautigan

Chairman Mao, Beijing  The Waves [Death gives separation repose. Without death, grief only sharpens]
-Tu Fu, Lucretius, Karl Marx, Voltaire, Rousseau, Guy Burgess, Amiri Baraka, Brecht, Neruda, Li Po, Li He, Bai Juyi, Lu Xun, Guo Moruo, Ho Chi-Fang, Yen Chen, Billie Holiday, Khomieni, Lu Ji , Wang Wei, Lao Tzu, Gary B. Fitzgerald, Wendell Berry

Dick Wolf, Santa Barbara  The Laws [In poetry everything is clear and definite]
-Ajip Rosidi, Aristotle, John Donne, Donald Hall, Jane Kenyon, Donald Justice, Anna Akhmatova, Thomas Hardy, Thomas Campion, Frederick Seidel, Antonio Machado, Mark Van Doren, David Lehman, Lord Bacon, Martial, ML Rosenthal, Horace, Gottfried Burger, Yvor Winters

Merv Griffin, Los Angeles  The Gamers  [He thought he saw an elephant that practiced on a fife]
-Lewis Carroll, James Tate, E.E. Cummings, Tony Hoagland, Ogden Nash, Billy Collins, Eugene Field, W.S. Gilbert, Thomas Hood, Noel Coward, X.J. Kennedy, John Betjeman, Wendy Cope, Tristan Tzara, Heather McHugh, Charles Bernstein, Jack Spicer, James Whitcomb Riley, Joe Green, Menander, Morgenstern

~~~~~

THE MODERN LEAGUE

Pamela Harriman, Arden NY The Dreamers [not the earth, the sea, none of it was enough for her, without me]
-Sharon Olds, Edna Millay, George Dillon, Floyd Dell, Dorothy Parker, Stanley Burnshaw, Richard Lovelace, Stevie Smith, Louis MacNeice, Louise Bogan, Louise Gluck, Jack Gilbert, Marge Piercy, Carolyn Forche, Muriel Rukeyser, Jean Valentine, May Swenson, Propertius, Anais Nin, Simone de Beauvoir

Andy Warhol, East 47th St The Printers [the eye, seeking to sink, is rebuffed by a much-worked dullness, the patina of a rag, that oily Vulcan uses, wiping up.]
-John Updike, Frank O’Hara, John Ashbery, Kenneth Koch, James Schuyler, James Merrill, Hart Crane, Lorca, Thom Gunn, Stephen Burt, Frank Bidart, Mark Rothko, Marjorie Perloff, John Quinn, Duchamp, Aristophanes, Christopher Isherwood, Andre Breton, Lou Reed, John Cage

John D. Rockefeller, Chicago The Buyers [Have you no thought, O dreamer, that it may be all maya, illusion?]
-Walt Whitman, Alcaeus, Edgar Lee Masters, Kenneth Rexroth, Elizabeth Bishop, Robert Lowell, Helen Vendler, Jorie Graham, Franz Wright, Mark Twain, Robert Penn Warren, Paul Engle, William Alexander Percy, Richard Hugo, Carl Philips, Harriet Monroe, Duke Ellington, Dylan Thomas, Jack Kerouac, Sigmund Freud

A. C. Barnes, Philadelphia  The Crash [But for some futile things unsaid I should say all is done for us]
-Allen Tate, John Gould Fletcher, John Crowe Ransom, John Dewey, Cleanth Brooks, Donald Davidson, Merrill Moore, Walter Pater, Wittgenstein, Andrew Nelson Lytle, Archilochus, Anne Waldman, Stanley Kunitz, Jackson Pollock, WC Williams, Luigi Russolo, Stephen Spender, Richard Howard

Steven Spielberg, Phoenix AZ  The Universe [I know why the caged bird sings]
-Maya Angelou, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Bob Dylan, Margaret Atwood, Paul Celan, Czeslaw Milosz, Delmore Schwartz, Randall Jarrell, Anthony Hecht, Galway Kinnell, Philip Levine, Larry Levis, Claudia Rankine, Harold Bloom, Alice Walker, James Wright, Juvenal, Chuck Berry, Stephen King

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Ballpark Road Trips in Review: 2018 - Ben's Biz Blog

 

 

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BEST SHORT POP RECORDINGS OF ALL TIME (2:30 OR LESS)

January 2, 2020 at 4:50 pm (Barbra Streisand, Bauhaus, Bill Withers, Black Flag, Black Sabbath, Bob Dylan, Bobby Darin, Bobby Fuller Four, Brian Hyland, Buddy Holly, Buffy St. Marie, Chubby Checker, Chuck Berry, Creedance Clearwater Revival, Daniel Johnson, Dave Clark Five, Del Shannon, Donovan, Eddie Cochran, Elliott Smith, Elvis Presley, Erik Darling, Everly Brothers, Fats Domino, Frank Sinatra, Gerry and the Pacemakers, Guided By Voices, Guys and Dolls, Harry Belafonte, Herman's Hermits, Jefferson Airplane, Johnnie Ray, Johnny Cash, Judy Garland, Kanye West, Led Zeppelin, Lesley Gore, Little Richard, Lotte Lenya, Manfred Mann, Marlene Dietrich, Maurice Williams & the Zodiacs, Mountain Goats, Neil Young, Neutral Milk Hotel, Nina Simone, Pete Seeger, Presidents of the United States of America, Ray Charles, Ritchie Valens, Sanford Clark, saosin, Scott Walker, Sibylle Baier, Simon & Garfunkle, Sublime, Supremes, The 4 Seasons, The Beach Boys, The Beatles, The Bee Gees, The Box Tops, The Coasters, The Crystals, The Dead Milkmen, The Dickies, The Doors, The Drifters, The Kinks, The Moldy Peaches, The Ramones, The Residents, The Rolling Stones, The Searchers, The Seekers, The Smiths, The Turtles, The Urinals, The Zombies, They Might Be Giants, Tim Buckley, Tony Bennett, Violent Femmes, Weezer, Wire, Young Marble Giants)

Image result for 1950s recording studio with cigarettes"

Compiling this list, as we looked over decades of music, we found ourselves asking, “What happened to the two minute pop song?”

In 2015, streaming became the best source of revenue in the music business.  In streaming, the shorter the song, the more it can be heard, and this equals more money.

So guess what’s happening?

Songs are getting shorter.

In 2000, the average song on the charts was over 4 minutes.

Now we’re down to about three and a half minutes, and two minute songs (and shorter) are beginning to pop up, again.

For almost 50 years, the two minute hit song has been dead.

Now it’s coming back.

Most of the songs on this list are from the 50s and 60s.

If you don’t see your favorite artist, it could be because they never made a mark under two and a half minutes.

We were very strict with this list.  The most glorious songs running to 2:31 were rejected.

At first, we set the standard at 2:06, the length of “Yesterday,” the pace setter, but too many short songs recorded by masters of brief hits would have been left out, so we settled on two and a half minutes—interminable, if one doesn’t happen to like the song, but still brief enough to meet the standard.

Elvis and the Beatles had hits under two minutes; these two famous acts produced many great songs in the ‘two minutes’ territory. (To keep the list from being dominated by the Beatles, we had to leave off All My Loving, She Loves You, You’ve Got to Hide Your Love Away, Martha My Dear, and many other favorites.) Producing a short recording isn’t easy for songwriters and bands to do. A 12 bar blues song tends to be at least three minutes. Most popular songs before and after (and during) the Elvis/early Beatles era were three or four minutes long. Groups like Devo, the Sex Pistols, the B-52s, and even the Ramones, usually took at least 3 minutes to say what they needed to say. Commercial reasons aside, one wonders: did the relatively short length of their songs (done consciously?) give Elvis and the Beatles a feverish, energetic boost as artists?

Whole decades are dominated by songs averaging four minutes in length—the whole philosophical, or just stylistic question, of the duration of a song, is a fascinating one. What if Mozart and Beethoven symphonies were all four minutes long—would these masters be considered “easy listening?”  How long do we want a song to be?  What imposes length? We think immediately of commercial air time, or now, commercial streaming time. But certainly aesthetics plays a part.

Two minutes is plenty of time to both tell a story and to feature intro, verse, chorus, bridge, and a short solo.  What else do we need?

Time is precious.  We are busy people.

So let’s get right to the list, in no particular order:

1. Yesterday -The Beatles  ~Paul McCartney, perhaps the happiest person on the planet, dreamed this brief gem of a broken-hearted song in the middle of Beatlemania.

2. Between The Bars -Elliott Smith ~This guy had a direct, poignant sound like no other.

3. You Don’t Own Me -Lesley Gore ~An early, operatic, feminist, masterpiece from the golden age of the short pop form.

4. Gin House Blues -Nina Simone  ~You probably don’t know this one. Off her early, great album “Forbidden Fruit.” It’s about gin. But does that matter?

5. All Shook Up -Elvis ~He ruled the short genre.

6. Please Please Please Let Me Get What I Want -The Smiths ~When you hear a song like this, you think, ‘Why does a song ever have to be long?”

7. White Rabbit -Jefferson Airplane  ~Is this song missing a chorus? Does it have a completely different structure, or does it just feel that way?

8. Universal Soldier -Buffy St. Marie ~This is more than a 60s anti-war song; it’s a whole soul cry.

9. The Good Life -Tony Bennett ~Even when pop songs were elegant, they featured lyrics which were partially a mystery. Please tell me what this song means!

10. Subterranean Homesick Blues -Bob Dylan This is one of his shortest. His pop genius tended to express itself in three to six minutes.

11. Ferry Cross the Mersey -Gerry and the Pacemakers ~The lilting, lazy (but brief) way to pop immortality.

12. A Day In The Life Of A Fool -Harry Belafonte ~Not his signature song, but a great version of a classic, the one version we found which clocks in under 2:30.

13. Georgy Girl -The Seekers ~Do they write swift, catchy, urbane, hopeful songs like this anymore?

14. Fly Me To The Moon -Frank Sinatra ~”Grown-up” music like Frank’s tended to run three and a half minutes long, not two. This one’s a little over two. Obviously there’s no hurrying Frank.

15. 59th Street Bridge Song (Feelin’ Groovy) -Simon & Garfunkel ~A breezy, under-two-minutes, swirl of swooning, 60s harmonizing.

16. Summertime Blues -Eddie Cochran ~A teenage, working class, lament—from 1958, covered in a live recording by The Who, in 1967.

17. Sit Down You’re Rocking the Boat -Guys and Dolls ~A full but fast Broadway musical number of arch religious urgency.

18. Bad Moon Rising -Creedance Clearwater Revival ~Pure, neat, and rocking.

19. Immigrant Song -Led Zeppelin ~They led the FM radio, longer song, wave of earnest rock; this minor hit from their third album is uncharacteristically quick.

20. Fun Fun Fun -The Beach Boys ~No surprise that they had short songs.

21. People Are Strange -The Doors ~The bad boys of AM radio loved the long song almost more than anyone else. But they had structured pop brevity, too.

22. Elenore -The Turtles ~Joyous romanticism.

23. Sealed With A Kiss -Brian Hyland ~A very pretty song, with the perfect bridge.

24. She’s Not There -The Zombies ~Beatles plus Dylan. Add mood.

25. Everyday -Buddy Holly ~The nerd Elvis. Died at 24.

26. I Fought The Law -Bobby Fuller Four ~Rolling rhythm of iconoclasm.

27. Eleanor Rigby-The Beatles ~Bite-sized classical music

28. Play With Fire -The Rolling Stones ~The Stones tended to stretch out; in this early, brief song, they ply one of their common themes: telling a chick who’s boss.

29. Plays Pretty For Baby -Saosin ~This rocks beautifully for 2 minutes and 2 seconds.

30. I Want To Hold Your Hand -The Beatles ~Their early hits get right to it; no lengthy intros, solos, or fade outs.

31. Teas -Donovan ~The most talented folk rocker of them all? Even this obscure song is great.

32. You Really Got Me -The Kinks ~Ray Davies began writing songs because he didn’t like the songs his talented band was covering. Great songwriting in the 60s was an amateur explosion.

33. The Needle and the Damage Done -Neil Young ~The somberest pleasure.

34. Dance Music -Mountain Goats ~Upbeat, hipster-era song with autobiographical feel.

35. Blister in the Sun -Violent Femmes ~Post-60s mannerism.

37. Blitzkrieg Bop -The Ramones ~When parody is so menacing and serious it’s good.

38. September Song -Nat King Cole ~A wonderful melancholy pop song and a wonderful melancholy  pop singer.

39. Let’s Twist Again -Chubby Checker ~Dance informs song in one way or another.

40. Falling In Love Again -Marlene Dietrich ~She’s had enough of you. But you want her.

41. Roll Over Beethoven -Chuck Berry ~It wasn’t true that Beethoven could be so good and  little pop numbers could also please. But it was true.

42. Blueberry Hill -Fats Domino ~When blues became pop.

43. Tutti Frutti -Little Richard ~A voice that goes through the roof even as electric is taking over the house.

44. La Bamba -Ritchie Valens ~The guitars on this song are fantastic—speaking Spanish or not.

45. Wake Up Little Susie -Everly Brothers ~Everything: Rock, country, folk, great guitar playing, great vocals, story, hooks.

46. Gucci Gang -Lil Pump ~A tiger laughs in this video, a recent hit which shows rap songs getting shorter. The 2 minute hit is returning.

47. Massachusetts -Bee Gees ~Their melody and vocals have great charm.

48. It’s Nothing To Me -Sanford Clark ~A barroom fight story.

49. Fell In Love With A Girl -White Stripes ~Snappy vocals and crunchy rock sound.

50. Communist Daughter -Neutral Milk Hotel ~Crunchy melancholy with a nice trumpet solo.

51. Lump -Presidents of the United States of America ~Hard and catchy.

52. Wrong Way -Sublime ~Tells a miserable story fast, with knock-about energy.

53. Letterbox -They Might Be Giants ~This song (1:26!) has a nice ‘wall of sound’ sound.

54. Game of Pricks -Guided By Voices ~A minute thirty of driving guitars and nice chord changes.

54. Danville Girl -Pete Seeger ~A sweet, melancholy, hobo song. A treasure.

55. Norwegian Wood -The Beatles ~Even as they became more sophisticated, they retained their early-days-knack for ravishing brevity.

56. It’s A Sin To Tell A Lie -The Ink Spots ~Insouciant (and influential) blues/rock & roll—they formed in 1932! One of the best vocal groups of all time.

57. Ain’t No Sunshine -Bill Withers ~1970s Smooth.

58. This Land is Your Land -Woody Guthrie ~Folk music for the U.S.A.

59. Rocky Top -The Osborne Brothers ~Fast and sweet.

60. Doo Wah Diddy Diddy -Manfred Mann ~A great vocal, and a really fun song.

61. Walk Like A Man -The 4 Seasons ~Your great-grandfather’s rock n’ roll.

62. Run Away -Del Shannon ~Melancholy romp.

63. Honky Tonk Blues –Hank Williams ~The Poet of Country Blues

64. He’s A Rebel -The Crystals ~That undying theme: the outsider rebel who woos.

65. Love Potion Number 9 -The Searchers ~A song doesn’t need much time to tell a story.

66. Come See About Me -Supremes ~Motown gals.

67. You Gave Your Love To Me Softly -Weezer ~A big, fuzzy sound over traditional structure.

68. Don’t Be Scared -Daniel Johnston ~Nice song. Sometimes being less scared matters.

69. Nervous Breakdown -Black Flag ~The lyrics, performance, and music sync up well.

70. Black Hole -The Urinals ~When a punk song has a certain softness, it’s always interesting.

71. Loneliness -The Residents ~The apocalypse: in a murky one minute and seven seconds.

72. Come In Stranger -Johnny Cash ~Country guitar over boogie woogie, and that voice!

73. Single Pigeon -Paul McCartney ~After the Beatles. The greatest pop songwriter of them all?

74. Untitled -Bauhaus ~Spooky war sounds and mumbles.

75. Colossal Youth -Young Marble Giants ~Toy instrumentation and girl vocal.

77. Moulin Rouge -Tim Buckley ~A trumpet, a bit of French, a sweet, vampy vocal.

78. Dean’s Dream -The Dead Milkmen ~Some punk is punk—but practiced with art.

79. Outdoor Miner -Wire ~Exquisite pop number which fades out at 1:45 just because it wants to.

80. Orchid -Black Sabbath ~Spanish guitar sound in a ‘less is more lesson’ from Tony Iommi.

81. 30 Century Man -Scott Walker ~”See the dwarfs and see the giants…” 89 seconds of pondering an attitude.

82. She’s A Hunchback -The Dickies ~One minute and twenty seven seconds of melodic, rhyming, punk genius.

83. Remember the Day -Sibylle Baier ~The winsome dream of girl and guitar, languid and sweet. She’s fantastic.

84. Follow God -Kanye West ~Self-assured enough to say big things casually and briefly.

85. It Never Was You -Lotte Lenya ~Married to the songwriter, Weil, who wrote for Brecht.

86. Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas -Judy Garland ~Her voice was too valuable to waste on a two minute song, but we found this Christmas song…

87. Second Hand Rose -Barbra Streisand ~The hit maker; this is from “Funny Girl.”

88. Hit The Road Jack -Ray Charles ~Brightly Percussive, with call-and-response.

89. Yes Indeed -Drake & Lil Baby ~Rap, backgrounded by its music, splits the mind.

90. Lazy Confessions -The Moldy Peaches ~Breathless hipsterism.

91. The Letter -The Box Tops ~A sophisticated, multi-instrument, formula hit in just 2 minutes.

92. Mercedes Benz -Janis Joplin ~G-Eazy’s rap song samples Joplin’s throw-away rather well.

93. Go In -Bigklit ~A recent girl rapper moving into short song territory.

94. Stay -Maurice Williams & the Zodiacs ~The falsetto “won’t you stay?” still excites.

95. Because -Dave Clark Five ~Iconic British invasion band originally formed to fund their soccer team’s travels.

96. I’m Henry VIII I Am -Herman’s Hermits ~Rock and roll can be kids music.

97. Jumpin’ Judy -Erik Darling ~From the folk album “True Religion,” one of the best ever made.

98. Yakety Yak -The Coasters ~A ‘clean your room’ song, fun, socially real, but innocent, and under 2 minutes.

99. Walking My Baby Back Home -Johnnie Ray ~Would have preferred “Cry,” but it was a little too long.

100. The Entertaining of a Shy Girl -Donovan ~If you don’t appreciate the genius of Donovan where have you been?

101. Black-eyed Susie -Ralph Stanley ~A bluegrass tempo can fit everything into two minutes.

102. The Scarecrow -Pink Floyd ~This band will always be Syd.

103. What’s New Pussycat -Tom Jones ~All that excitement in 2:09!

104. It’s Only A Paper Moon -Ella Fitzgerald ~”It’s a Barnum and Bailey world, just as phoney as it can be, but it wouldn’t be make-believe, if you believed in me.” A classic. And we cheated. The final note of this complex arrangement sounds at 2:32. For Ella we’ll do anything.

 

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