MORE ROUND TWO RESULTS

October 16, 2020 at 2:26 pm (Ben Franklin, Ben Mazer, Bob Dylan, Christina Rossetti, Czeslaw Milosz, Dante, Delmore Schwartz, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Juvenal, Leonardo da Vinci, Lorenzo de Medici, Martin Luther King Jr, Mozart, Paul Celan, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Philip II, Raymond Carver, Richard Feynman, steven spielberg, Thomas Wyatt)

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Bob Dylan leads Universe to Game 4 victory

UNIVERSE 8 BANNERS 5

The Florence Banners again found themselves in the middle of controversy as Percy Shelley lost control of his temper, and round two game four, when calls did not go his way from home plate umpire Richard P. Feynman. “When an umpire takes away a portion of the strike zone which rightly belongs to the pitcher, he’s altering the outcome of the game in favor of the other team,” is how Shelley put it to the press after the Florence Banners lost to the Phoenix Universe. The home crowd in Italy came to see Shelley tie up the series, 2-2. Instead, a big home run late by Bob Dylan propelled the Universe to an 8-5 victory, and a commanding 3-1 lead in the series. The Banners knocked out the Universe starter, Lucian Freud early, as Christina Rossetti continued her exceptional hitting in the playoffs with a 3 run double in the third. Glyn Maxwell, the Banners back up catcher, homered after Thomas Moore doubled in the fourth, giving Florence a 5-0 lead. But Shelley began to question calls in the top of the fifth, as he walked three straight hitters. Henrik Ibsen then hit a ball off the wall to score two—and red hot Delmore Schwartz slammed another home run to tie the score. Czeslaw Milosz, Edward Said, Michel Foucault, and Jean Cocteau came out of the Phoenix bullpen to keep the Banners scoreless.

BANNERS 3 UNIVERSE 2

Virgil wins his 3rd playoff game in 3 starts as he out-duels Martin Luther King Jr 3-2, in Florence, keeping the Banners alive. King struck out 11 in the loss, while Virgil fanned 12, walking none. With the game tied at 2, Stefan George, the Banners catcher, picked up his second game winning hit of the series, homering down the left field line in the 8th. Virgil struggled a bit in the ninth as Chuck Berry singled, but Berry was thrown out trying to steal by George, and after Bob Dylan singled, Virgil struck out Juvenal on a high fastball for his third complete game win in the post-season. Christina Rossetti singled, went to the third on a bad pick off attempt, and then came home on Friedrich Schiller’s home run, as the Banners jumped off to a 2-0 lead in the first. Anthony Hecht took Virgil deep in the third, making it 2-1, and then singled in Paul Celan in the sixth to tie the score.

BANNERS 5 UNIVERSE 1

Leonardo da Vinci struck out 14 hitters as the series returns to Phoenix, as the Banners force a game 7, with a 5-1 victory over Harriet Beecher Stowe and Steven Spielberg’s Universe. da Vinci also homered and began a 1-4-3 double play when Paul Celan tried to bunt a runner over for the Universe in the second. Lorenzo de Medici’s Banners, the Wild Card team from the Glorious Division, knocked off Ben Franklin’s Boston Secrets in 7 games—winning game seven as the visiting team. Florence is now in a game 7, played tomorrow in Phoenix—and Dante Alighieri hopes to complete the Banners’ comeback. The winner tomorrow enters the World Series against the Dublin Laureates. Singles by Juvenal, Alice Walker, and Galway Kinnell produced the only Universe run. Thomas Wyatt and Ben Mazer knocked in 2 runs apiece for the big Florence win. The Universe will call on Raymond Carver to stop the Banners. Carver has pitched well in his two post-season starts but has received no run support—the Universe were blanked both times. The Universe were the visiting club when they beat Wolfgang Mozart to eliminate Philip II’s Madrid Crusaders in six games.

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MADRID CRUSADERS SHOCK THE WORLD!

September 24, 2020 at 10:34 pm (Aeschylus, Anne Bradstreet, Beethoven, Gerard Manley Hopkins, Handel, John Dryden, Madrid Crusaders, Mary Angela Douglas, Michelangelo, Milton, Mozart, Philip II)

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Scarriet 2020 Poetry Baseball Report on the Emperor Division! Final Results!

Philip’s father, the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, raised his son to have “piety, patience, modesty, and distrust,” and though Philip’s Spanish “Golden Age” in art and literature stretched across the globe, Philip’s coffers were always close to empty while defending the Catholic faith against Muslims to the south, and Protestants to the north—with a relatively small population under his rule.

How did Philip afford the Crusaders?

How was Philip able to lure Beethoven, Mozart, and Handel onto his pitching staff?

The published motto of Philip’s team, “If in my thought I have magnified the Father above the Son, let Him have no mercy on me,” perhaps struck a chord with these devoted and superhuman composers. The Crusaders have neither a famous bullpen nor an expensive, star-filled lineup, but thanks to Madrid’s core of starting pitching, they finished with the third best win total in the league, as champions of the talent-filled Emperor Division—beating out Pope Julius II, Napoleon, Charles X, and Fellini, who populated their clubs with such stars as Homer, Goethe, Coleridge, Hegel, Kant, Hesiod, Cicero, Wilde, Milton, Dryden, Bach, Hugo, Sophocles, Catullus, Heine, Michelangelo, Spenser, Blake, Petrarch, Racine, Auden, Burns, Rilke, and Sappho.

Gerard Manley Hopkins hit lead off for the Crusaders, and led the league with 42 stolen bases. Anne Bradstreet and Aeschylus took low salaries, and drove in runs for Philip’s team; Joyce Kilmer and Phillis Wheatley, who joined Aeschylus in the outfield, contributed just enough, along with Countee Cullen and Saint Ephrem—who hit third, played short, and when he was hurt in late April, was replaced by the poet Mary Angela Douglas (.299 20 homers), who took no salary at all!—and went on a tear, inspiring the team with 14 home runs in May (this was before Mozart and Beethoven joined the club) and she later filled in for Bradstreet at the end of August—and contributed timely hits to provide wins for Beethoven, Mozart and Aquinas.

The Crusaders title is being called a miracle.

Mozart made the difference in the end.  He was 5-4, but won his last 6 starts.  The Rome Ceilings, the team to beat, struggled in the home stretch, going 3-7, while the Crusaders were going 8-2.  In the final series of the season, Milton, ace of the Ceilings, beat the Crusaders and Scarlatti 5-4, bringing the Ceilings to within 2 games of the Crusaders with 3 left to play.  The next night, the clincher was won by Mozart—who had previously shut out the Goths and the Codes. Now he shut out the Ceilings for 7 innings (running his scoreless streak to 27) as he beat Dryden 4-1 in Madrid. With the game tied 1-1 in the eighth, Mary Angela Douglas cleared the bases with a 2 out, line drive double, just past the Ceilings’ first baseman, Michelangelo.

Here are the final standings, with team leaders:

Crusaders  85 69  Winner  Philip II owner, Miguel de Cervantes manager, Team Leaders: Aeschylus 30 homers, Bradstreet .373, Hopkins 42 SB, Handel 20-5, Beethoven 2.21 ERA

Ceilings  82 72 Pope Julius II owner, Cardinal Richelieu manager, Euripides 27, Petrarch .312, Blake 29 SB, Milton 18-11, Milton 2.53

Codes   78 76 Napoleon owner, Alexander (the Great) manager, V Hugo 37, Walcott .315, Racine 21 SB, Homer 19-7, Homer 3.19

Goths   77 77 Charles X owner, Arthur Schopenhauer manager, Sophocles 35, Heine .299, Catullus 32 SB, Chateaubriand 20-12, Chateaubriand 2.74

Broadcasters  68 86 Fellini owner, Claudius manager, Bobby Burns 32, M Jagger .305, M Jagger 20 SB, Nabokov 16-16, Leopardi 2.91

 

Next: Winners of Glorious, Society, Peoples, and Modern Divisions!  Playoff Previews!

 

 

 

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