When Scarriet was young and the Scarriet editors more ambitious, an entire 154 game poetry baseball season happened: two leagues, 20 teams, and a world series in which the Philadelphia Poe defeated the Rapallo Pound 4 games to 1.
Teams were built around an American poet and every position was filled with figures (not only poets) associated with the team’s poet-manager.
The sports writing sounded like this:
Whitman picked up Gaugin, Melville, and Aaron Copeland as starting pitchers, but all three were hard-luck hurlers. There was an odd chemistry to the Whitman club that never clicked: Robinson Jeffers, D.H. Lawrence, William Rossetti, Edgar Lee Masters, Bronson Alcott, Lawrence Ferlinghetti were in a lineup together that never hit in the clutch, didn’t run the bases enough, failed to move runners over, and even fought in the clubhouse; it was a mess. Whitman’s verve never carried over to his interesting mix of players.
William Carlos Williams shared last place with Whitman; the lineup of Duchamp, Creeley, Rexroth, Duncan, Snyder, Loy, Noguchi, and Spicer just didn’t provide enough punch.
Mallarme and Hollander hit for Stevens, Dos Passos and Picasso for Cummings, and Dickinson got hitting from Keats and Tennyson. Frost was in the race for a while, getting good offense from Hardy, Larkin, Oliver, and Wordsworth.
After his heralded signing at mid-season, Jesus Christ of the Frost proved to be human on the mound at 10-5. Pound and Eliot could not be caught.
The final standings:
AL
rapallo pound 100-54 –
london eliots 97-57 3
new england frost 91-63 9
amherst emily 78-76 22
hartford stevens 75-79 25
cambridge cummings 72-82 28
new york moore 69-85 31
iowa city grahams 67-87 33
brooklyn whitmans 61-93 39
new jersey williams 61-93 39
NL
philadelphia poe 92-62 –
brooklyn ashberys 89-65 3
boston lowells 85-69 7
cambridge longfellows 83-71 9
new york bryants 82-72 10
concord emersons 79-75 13
maine millays 75-79 17
tennessee ransom 70-84 22
hartford whittiers 66-88 26
new jersey ginsbergs 49-105 43
Why was the Pound so successful? A bunch of players, added after the season was underway, wildly defied expectations. Here’s a little commentary with the world series lineups:
The Philadelphia Poe’s projected starting lineup:
Gilmore Simms, RF. Hurt for most of the year (Samuel F.B. Morse filled in admirably). Simms can run.
Charles Brockden Brown, SS. A slap hitter who advances runners. George Lippard, another native Philadelphian, is the reserve infielder.
Charles Baudelaire, 2B. Gap hitter, makes contact.
George Byron, 1B. When Byron couldn’t play, Alfred Hitchock took over. Byron slugged 29 homers.
Thomas Moore, C. Excellent on-base percentage.
Fydor Dostoevsky, 3B. Hit over .400 with 2 outs and runners in scoring position. Team-leading 47 doubles.
Virginia Poe, CF. Swift as a deer in center. Surprising power: 17 homers.
Fanny Osgood, LF. League-leading 14 assists. Very hard to strike out.
Alexander Pope, P. Great sacrifice bunter.
And, for the Rapallo Pound:
Aleister Crowley, CF. Took over for Wyndham Lewis. Crowley hit three triples in the Pound’s pennant-clinching victory.
Hilda Doolittle, 2B. Great D from H.D. She’s been nursing a sore ankle. Flaubert may start instead.
William Butler Yeats, SS. The best glove anyone has ever seen. A disappointment at the plate, but does get on base. Francis Villon, his replacement, can hit.
Ford Madox Ford, 1B. 41 homers, 134 RBIs.
James Joyce, LF. .311 batting average. Back from a late-season injury. Basil Bunting was his replacement.
James Laughlin, 3B. The New Directions kid wasn’t expected to hit. He slugged 39 homers and batted .340. MVP numbers from a mere editor.
Ernest Fenollosa, C. Steady, handles pitchers well. Missed the month of August. Margaret Anderson of the Little Review is the back-up.
Benito Mussolini, RF. Great clubhouse presence. A gun for an arm in right. Few go from first to third on him.
Marquis de Sade, P. Chats with the opposing catcher the whole time he’s up.
Pound and his team were frankly, scary. But Poe, and his team were not intimidated, as the two clubs met in the world series.
Here’s a recap of the five games:
Game One
Philadelphia rightfielder Gilmore Simms homered in the bottom of the 14th inning as the Philadelphia Poe edged the Rapallo Pound in the first game of the World Series, 5-4.
The Pound took the early lead as Francois Villon hit a 2-home run in the first inning against Philadelphia starter Alexander Pope. Manager Ezra Pound chose to start Villon at shortstop over Yeats, who has not hit well this year. In the second inning, Aleister Crowley made it 3-0 as he scratched a hit, stole second and third, and came home on a sacrifice fly by Ford Madox Ford.
Sade, the eccentric Rapallo starter, kept the Poe in check until Alfred Hitchcock, starting in place of Lord Byron—unable to play because of dizzy spells—doubled, and came home on a two-out single by Dostoevsky in the bottom of the fourth, to make it 3-1.
Pope, the Philadelphia starter, then scored a run for the Poe in the fifth to make it 3-2. Sade hit Pope, who then went to third when Simms’s grounder to Villon was thrown into centerfield trying to get a force at second, and Pope scored on Baudelaire’s single to left with two outs.
Philly tied it in the bottom of the sixth on back-to-back singles by Thomas Moore, Dostoevsky, and Virginia Poe.
The Pound went ahead, 4-3, in the top of the seventh on a homerun by Benito Mussolini.
Then, in the bottom of the ninth, with Sade still on the mound, having retired the side in order in the seventh and eighth, James Laughlin, the young third baseman for Rapallo, allowed a grounder to go under his glove, allowing Virginia Poe to score the tying run. She was on second with two outs, after a bloop double.
Richard Wagner and then Filipo Marinetti pitched well in relief for the Pound, while Winfield Scott and then Jaques Lacan kept the Pound in check into the middle of the 14th inning.
Charles Olson came in for the Pound in the bottom of the 14th, got two easy outs, and then faced Poe leadoff hitter William Gilmore Simms. On the first pitch, a high fastball, the South took the North deep, and the Philadelphia Poe are up 1-0 in the first Scarriet World Series.
Game Two
Ernest Fenollosa drove his second homerun deep into the Philadelphia night against Poe reliever Conan Doyle to snap a 5-5 tie in the top of the ninth, and give the Rapallo Pound a victory over the Philadelphia Poe, to knot this tense series at one game apiece.
The contest now heads to Rapallo for game three on Saturday.
Alexander Humboldt yielded singles-hitter Ernest Fenollosa’s first of two shocking grandslams on a hanging curve in the second, then allowed a run in the third, before settling down and pitching well until he was lifted for a pinchitter in the bottom of the eighth. Samuel F.B. Morse went down swinging for the Poe, and the game moved to the ninth, tied at 5. Pound starter H.G. Wells left the contest in the bottom of the sixth when he allowed the Poe to tie the score with two runs, on a Charles Brocken Brown two-run double off the wall.
Poe reliever Jules Verne walked the bases loaded, after retiring the first two Pound batters he faced in the top of the ninth. Poe then brought on Arthur Conan Doyle, and Fenollosa took his first pitch fastball deep to left-center.
Louis Zukovsky picked up the win in relief, as he held the Poe scoreless in the seventh and eighth, pitching out of jam in the eighth. Hugh Kenner came in for the Pound to pitch a scoreless ninth.
After Fenollosa’s first grandslam in the top of the second, Charles Baudelaire got the Poe on the board in the bottom of the second with a two-run homer off H.G. Wells, to make it 4-2.
Game Three
It began with Blavatsky and ended with Dostoevsky.
Ezra Pound’s obtuse opinion of Russian Literature (“I have omitted the Rhooshuns.” —How To Read) came back to haunt him yesterday, as Fyodor Dostoevsky broke a 0-0 tie in the 14th inning (Poe won the first game of the Series in 14 innings!) with a single punched through a drawn-in infield, scoring Philadelphian George Lippard. It was Dostoevsky’s birthday, and surely the most exciting one of his life.
The Pound were bewitched for 10 innings by Lord Bacon, not quite in command of his 3 pitches, as the Pound left 12 runners-on-base, 7 in scoring position, threatening to score numerous times. The French hero Lafayette pitched shutout ball for the next three frames. Percy Shelley pitched the bottom of the 14th. The Englishman struck out the Pound’s James Joyce, coming after him with 3 straight fastballs with two outs and the bases loaded to give the Poe a heart-stopping 1-0 victory, and a 2-1 series lead.
The Rapallo fans screamed themselves hoarse. The game took six hours and eleven minutes to play. Numerous celebrated authors were spotted in the stands: Homer, Socrates, and Dante were sitting together, as a matter of fact. T.S. Eliot, of course, was on hand, and in the front row, accompanied by his lawyer John Quinn and the author Aldous Huxley.
The game was stopped at one point, when Poe complained to the umpires that team Pound was dimming the lights when it was team Poe’s turn to bat.
The lighting was apparently the same; no one was sure whether Poe’s complaint was legitimate, or not, but the managers almost came to blows, as Pound went ballistic. The game itself was almost called. The Rapallo fans, who were not privy to the discussions on the field, had no idea what was happening, but some started to take the field when they saw Pound rushing the Poe dugout. It took three quarters of an hour to restore order.
The Pound’s Madame Blavatsky spun her black magic for 7 shutout innings; she was lifted for Harriet Monroe after walking two straight batters to start the top of the 8th.
Harriet Shaw Weaver pitched a scoreless 10th and Dorothy Shakespeare kept the Poe quiet in the 11th and 12th; Pound’s most successful reliever, Richard Wagner, entered wearing his cape for the start of the 13th, and promptly struck out the side, but he quickly got into trouble in the fourteenth, when suddenly he couldn’t find the plate with his magnificent curve. George Lippard pinch-ran for Samuel F.B. Morse, who was struck on the knee by Wagner with a 3-0 fastball. Two more walks loaded the bases, and with two outs, Fyodor Dostoevsky made “the Rhooshuns” proud, with perhaps the most important hit for the Poe all year.
Game Four
Samuel Taylor Coleridge scattered 11 hits and helped his team with a bases-clearing double as the Romantic poet led the Philadelphia Poe to an easy Game 4 win over Olga Rudge and the Rapallo Pound.
The Poe came into game 4 leading 2-1, with both wins coming in 14 inning contests. The Pound missed countless opportunities to score in Game 3 and the team now seems haunted by those missed opportunities. Rudge, who was 19-5 during the regular season, was not sharp, and Henri Gaudier-Brzeska fared no better in relief.
Gilmore Simms, who won Game One with a 14th inning homer, tripled to lead off the game and scored on a Baudelaire double, setting the tone for the one-sided contest.
Coleridge described his performance as “unreal,” telling reporters after the game he could not remember what he did on the mound, or with the bat. “I honestly don’t recall the game at all,” he opined, his curls dangling sweat, looking oddly cherubic as he looked upward from the bench in front of his locker, blinking into the photographer’s lights.
Game One starter, the Marquis de Sade, goes for the Pound tomorrow to stave off elimination.
Game Five
Alexander Pope allowed 3 hits over seven innings to lead the Philadelphia Poe to a 5-1 victory over the Marquis de Sade and the Rapallo Pound.
Osip Mandelstam hurled a pefect eighth for the Poe, and General Winfield Scott pitched the ninth, yielding a solo homerun to James Joyce, as the Poe won the first Scarriet World Series title by winning three straight at Rapallo, the Pound’s home park.
Arthur C. Clarke, starting in left field for Fanny Osgood, was the batting hero for the Poe, with 3 hits and 4 RBIs.
Lord Byron had the other RBI for the Poe, as he delivered a two-out single to knock in Charles Brockden Brown to start the scoring in the third, after looking foolish on the previous pitch by Sade, Byron falling down as he chased a slow pitch out of the strike zone. “Poetry is nothing more than a certain dignity which life tries to take away,” Byron said later in a jubilant clubhouse.
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BREAKING NEWS
Scarriet may play another baseball season!!
And add more teams!!
More poets!!
Stay tuned.