Report Of The Baseball Game

Hoosier Lyrics is a book of poetry by Eugene Field, who was born in St. Louis in 1850. While Field was raised in Massachusetts and lived in various places throughout his life, he returned to St. Louis as an adult and worked for several local newspapers from 1876 to 1880. Hoosier Lyrics contains three poems that have baseball as its subject and, in my opinion, the best is Report of the Baseball Game, a humorous account of an 1886 World Series game between the St. Louis Browns and the Chicago White Stockings. The fact that Field lived in Chicago from 1883 until his death in 1895 gives the poem an interesting perspective. I post it here for your pleasure.

REPORT OF THE BASEBALL GAME.

It was a very pleasant game,

And there was naught of grumbling

Until the baleful tidings came

That Williamson was "fumbling."

Then all at once a hideous gloom

Fell o'er all manly features,

And Clayton's cozy, quiet room

Was full of frantic creatures.

"Click, click," the tiny ticker went,

The tape began to rattle,

And pallid, eager faces bent

To read the news from battle;

Down, down, ten million feet or more,

Chicago's hope went tumbling,

When came the word that Burns and Gore

And Pfeffer, too, were "fumbling."

No diagram was needed then

To point the Browns to glory-

The simple fact that these four men

Were "fumbling" told the story.

There is not a club in all the land-

No odds how weak or humble-

That beats us when our short-stop and

Our second baseman "fumble."

There was some talk of hippodrome

'Mid frequent calls for liquor,

Then each Chicago man went home

Much wiser, poorer, sicker;

And many a giant intellect

Seemed slowly, surely crumbling

Beneath the dolorous effect

Of that St. Louis "fumbling."

Ah, well, the struggle's but just begun,

So what is the use of fretting

If by a little harmless fun

Our boys can bull the betting?

When comes the tug of war there'll be

No accidental stumbling,

And then, you bet your boots, you'll see

No mention made of "fumbling."