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Someone else's parody -- The Batter's Soliloquy
From Three Men on Third:
"At hand is a yellow-backed booklet, published in 1910 and bearing the title: On the Road with the Base Ball Bugs. The authors are Jack Regan and Will E. Stahl, and the contents consist of jokes and jingles. In all your born days you never saw such corn.
Included in the booklet, however, is a parody which deserves the attention of such baseball fans as there are in the world who happen also to be Shakespeare fans. It is titled The Batter's Soliloquy, its author is Donald Douglass, and it is prefaced with a line stating that it deals with a situation in the ninth inning, man on third, two out and the score tied at 2-2. The soliloquy itself follows:"
To wait, or not to wait - that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in this game to suffer
The taunts and yells of the outrageous fans,
Or dodge the curves and drops of an erratic pitcher,
And, by my coolness, 'scape htem? To wait -- to walk,
No more; and by a walk to say we stroll
To first, and then be daring like Ty Cobb,
And work the Double Steal -- 'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wished. To walk -- to steal --
To steal. Perchance to score. Ay, there's the rub --
For in that Double Steal what chance may come
When we have rattled the opposing pitcher,
Must give us runs; there's the respect
That makes a walk of so long life;
For who would bear the yells and taunts of fans,
The umpire's wrong, the bleachers' contumely,
The pangs of disprized hope, the game's delay,
The insolence of gamins, and the spurns
That one must take from the unknowing
When he himself his fame might make
By a 2-bagger? Who would roastings bear,
To grunt and swear under a weary game,
But that the dread of something after it,
The Minor Leagues, from whose ranks
No old time star returns, startles the mind;
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Then fly to others whence we ne'er return?
These bleachers do make cowards of us all;
And thus the fumble of a hard-hit grounder,
Is yelled at by the bleacher mob,
And, thus in places of great chance and moment,
We all make bone-head plays that lose the game.
"At hand is a yellow-backed booklet, published in 1910 and bearing the title: On the Road with the Base Ball Bugs. The authors are Jack Regan and Will E. Stahl, and the contents consist of jokes and jingles. In all your born days you never saw such corn.
Included in the booklet, however, is a parody which deserves the attention of such baseball fans as there are in the world who happen also to be Shakespeare fans. It is titled The Batter's Soliloquy, its author is Donald Douglass, and it is prefaced with a line stating that it deals with a situation in the ninth inning, man on third, two out and the score tied at 2-2. The soliloquy itself follows:"
To wait, or not to wait - that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in this game to suffer
The taunts and yells of the outrageous fans,
Or dodge the curves and drops of an erratic pitcher,
And, by my coolness, 'scape htem? To wait -- to walk,
No more; and by a walk to say we stroll
To first, and then be daring like Ty Cobb,
And work the Double Steal -- 'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wished. To walk -- to steal --
To steal. Perchance to score. Ay, there's the rub --
For in that Double Steal what chance may come
When we have rattled the opposing pitcher,
Must give us runs; there's the respect
That makes a walk of so long life;
For who would bear the yells and taunts of fans,
The umpire's wrong, the bleachers' contumely,
The pangs of disprized hope, the game's delay,
The insolence of gamins, and the spurns
That one must take from the unknowing
When he himself his fame might make
By a 2-bagger? Who would roastings bear,
To grunt and swear under a weary game,
But that the dread of something after it,
The Minor Leagues, from whose ranks
No old time star returns, startles the mind;
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Then fly to others whence we ne'er return?
These bleachers do make cowards of us all;
And thus the fumble of a hard-hit grounder,
Is yelled at by the bleacher mob,
And, thus in places of great chance and moment,
We all make bone-head plays that lose the game.