There was a time when baseball was simple.
Wins, batting averages and Runs Batted In
were all you needed to know.
Whether scout, fan, or player,
one is now requited to consult a field manual
full of strange sounding statistics.
“Who’s on first?” has been replaced by a slash line,
OPS, WHIP, and a ceiling on number of pitches thrown.
Pitchers pitch to quadrants, batters hit to zones,
and decisions for future employment are made
by men with Master’s degrees in statistics.
(And let us not even begin to talk about replays.)
Oh, poor batter, encumbered
by numbers too heavy to bear.
Oh, poor pitcher, weighted down
by concerns about the angle of his arm.
Return, please, to an earlier time and place
when baseball was pure, and was not
a game for which a spread sheet is required.
THE POETRY OF THE GAME