Rooting For A Last Place Baseball Team
A Poem by Zach Foster
My hometown baseball team is now forty games out of first
Of the teams in the league, we are the worst.
The pitching staff, so eager and young,
On which our hopes of a dream season hung,
Got lit up early and often and never came around
Sinking our chances for the pennant with only the sound
Of the crack of the other teams’ bats sending the ball
Over our outfield’s walls.
Our bats started luke warm only to go completely cold
When our two best hitters got traded and sold
To better playing teams on the coasts,
From there the team gave up the ghost.
Sitting in the stands of our ballpark on a late September day
With far more empty seats than fans who paid
I’m watching this scorned mut of a team I’ve loved since youth
Fighting desperately nail and tooth
To stay in a meaningless late season game
With nothing but pride to gain.
For those of us few, but faithful, bleacher bums, we have no fear
For our rallying cry is “Wait until next year!”
You sound like a Cubs fan.
No, I’m a Rockies fan. With the exception of a pennant team in ’07, we haven’t had much to cheer lately.
Here in San Diego the owners of the Padres promised us a winning baseball team if we would just vote to spend half a billion dollars to build a new stadium for the millionaire owners. Well, we did. Did they live up to their part of the bargain? Nope.