BAN THE BULLPEN

Oh, where are those pitchers of yesteryear,
those herculean hurlers of yore
who easily tossed the ball for nine innings,
and then facetiously asked,
“Can I pitch the second game, skip?”?
What of the namby-pamby players of today,
those relief pitchers at the back of the rotation
who cower if called upon to face even one batter?
Where are my heroes – Young, Cleveland,
Mathewson and Johnson,
those big-hearted, flame-throwing
behemoths of the baseball diamond
who would gladly toil inning after inning
without the incentive of million dollar contracts?
Banish the Bullpen, I say.
Make modern day pitchers go the distance.
Do not let them be felled by
an errant hangnail or microscopic blister.
They may all be the boys of summer, true,
but I stand up and wish for them to be called men.