13 Ways of Looking at a Hall of Fame Candidate
09 Jan 2012 by Ted
Since our blog is, after all, called Pitchers & Poets, we thought we would subject a few of this year’s Hall of Fame candidates to the imaginary scrutiny of both a pitcher and a poet of our choosing. Below, see the Hall of Fame analysis of a professional pitcher, and the response from a prominent poet, as you await the final ruling:
Jeff Bagwell
Cardinals hurler and freelance groundskeeper Jim Otten: "Unless steroids make goatees grow faster, you can’t prove anything."
Poet WH Auden: “Now he is scattered among a hundred cities, and wholly given over to unfamiliar affections to find his happiness in another kind of wood.”
Barry Larkin
Reno Silver Sox hurler Nathan Ginsberg: “One of the best hitting and fielding shortstops of his generation. Writers, you know what to do.”
Poet Allen Ginsberg: “When will you be angelic? When will you take off your clothes? When will you look at yourself through the grave? When will you be worthy of your million Christs?”
Bernie Williams
California Angels farmhand Ronald Sylvia: “Probably not Hall-worthy, but he had a great career.”
Poet Sylvia Plath: “His head is a little interior of grey mirrors. Each gesture flees immediately down an alley of diminishing perspectives, and its significance drains like water out the hole at the far end.”
Jack Morris
Old timey Pittsburgh Allegheny Ed “Cannonball” Morris: “Heckuva competitor, good lifetime numbers, and a fine face-whisker set. Probably deserves a shot at immortality.”
Poet Robert Lowell: “He has an angry wrenlike vigilance, a greyhound's gentle tautness; he seems to wince at pleasure, and suffocate for privacy.”
Edgar Martinez
67th round draft pick for the Houston Astros in 1996 Ben Keats: “I have never met Edgar Martinez, but I once saw him order dinner from across the restaurant.”
Poet John Keats: “He hath heard the Lion's roaring, and can tell what his horny throat expresseth.”
Tim Raines
Early 80s California Angels starter Dave Frost: “Rock has been overlooked for way too long.”
Poet Robert Frost: “He is all pine and I am apple orchard.”