Casey At the Bat: 2020 Style

The outlook wasn’t brilliant for Mudville fans that day: After five and a half hours, there was still an inning left to play. The fans realized these players weren’t the best, A third of each team was out; they had failed the Covid test. And if that wasn’t enough to ensure a stinker, Mudville’s Hall of Fame manager got another DUI--he was in the klinker. Pitchers? Thirteen men had already hurled the pill. So many changes they put a revolving door upon the hill. The score stood two to one; three solo homers had been hit. But other than those three blows, batsmen hadn’t done shit. Thirty men had taken three whiffs and retreated with egg on their face. A handful had walked and been pathetically left on base. And so when Cooney drew a nine-pitch walk and Barrow did the same, A giant prayer went up: “Please God, let someone end this game.” Some thought, “If only a miracle happened and someone could score, Why, we’d be home then by three AM, if not a little before.” An old-timer offered, “How about a bunt, steal or hit and run?” “You silly geezer,” they sneered. “You know that’s not how it’s done.” The three true outcomes, that’s where it’s at. Walk, strike out or home run, that’s all you need from an at bat. “You never risk an out on the bases. Bunt? That’s not the way And as for defense: who cares, don’t need it--the ball’s never put in play.” So when Flynn, swinging wildly, missed a third strike by a mile, And Blake, without a whimper, went down looking they could barely smile. The snooze-fest continued; silence broken only by Casey’s walkup riff. Even fans who were awake, they couldn’t clap—It was so late their hands were stiff. They yawned as he went through his at-bat routine for five minutes or more. When he finished scratching, pulling and stretching, you could even hear some fans snore. And then, when he took the first two strikes, no one gave a care. “Never swing early in the count,” he said. “Wouldn’t dare.” But now the moment of truth was finally at hand Something had to happen; fans sat up and watched all over the land. Things certainly were tense, but Casey smiled as if not a worry in his head. Because he knew a secret they didn’t, and so he was relaxed instead. Someone in the bullpen, you see, they had stolen the sign. Casey heard the clang of trash cans and thought, “This next pitch is mine.” He smiled as he thought, “I can hit this one over the wall.” “And I’m sure glad I took that Lasix, to mask the stanazol” But on the mound the pitcher only smiled; you see he had a secret as well. He applied a foreign substance; it increased his spin rate and his pitch was hard as hell. And so when Casey took a mighty swing with a massive upper cut The ball disappeared into the catcher’s mitt, Casey slipped and fell on his butt. Oh somewhere in this favored land they still play baseball that’s fun. Fans care and love it as players make contact, play defense, steal and run. Somewhere baseball stirs passion, makes men cheer and women weep. But not in Mudville anymore. You see, their fans are all asleep.