Poem of the Day: ‘Slug the Umpire’

We’ve been publishing poems with a connection to the archives of The New York Sun: Ernest Thayer’s 1888 “Casey at the Bat,” for example. Ella Wheeler Wilcox’s 1892 “March” — along with Nathalia Crane’s 1922 “The History of Honey” and Don Marquis’s 1920 “archy confesses.” Not all the newspaper poetry of those days appeared in the Sun, however. Some, alas, appeared in the pages of our rival papers. And here, since it’s still baseball season, is an example: an anonymous comic squib from the New York Tribune in 1886.“Slug the Umpire” is not great poetry. It’s not even good poetry, with too many prepositions forced to carry a stress: “ìn a dèar delìghtful grìp,” for example. But the point of the lighter verses we run as Poems of the Day on Wednesdays is that, first of all, they have to be fun. And “Slug the Umpire” is fun. In five delightfully gruesome tetrameter quatrains, it explains exactly what a fan would like to do to the umpire, even before the innings start. Collected by the “Baseball Almanac,” the poem doesn’t definitively prove that baseball games were rowdier in 1886 than they are today — although they may have been. It does prove, however, that language was a lot less prissy in those days, and an audience could be charmed by silly descriptions of all an umpire deserves.Slug the Umpireby AnonymousMother, may I slug the umpireMay I slug him right away?So he cannot be here, MotherWhen the clubs begin to play?Let me clasp his throat, dear mother,In a dear delightful gripWith one hand and with the otherBat him several in the lip.Let me climb his frame, dear mother,While the happy people shout;I’ll not kill him, dearest motherI will only knock him out.Let me mop the ground up, Mother,With his person, dearest do;If the ground can stand it, MotherI don’t see why you can’t, too.Mother may I slug the umpire,Slug him right between the eyes?If you let me do it, MotherYou shall have the champion prize.___________________________________________With “Poem of the Day,” The New York Sun offers a daily portion of verse selected by Joseph Bottum with the help of the North Carolina poet Sally Thomas, the Sun’s associate poetry editor. Tied to the day, or the season, or just individual taste, the poems are drawn from the deep traditions of English verse: the great work of the past and the living poets who keep those traditions alive. The goal is always to show that poetry can still serve as a delight to the ear, an instruction to the mind, and a tonic for the soul.

Poem of the Day: ‘Slug the Umpire’

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