William James, the Nitrous Oxide Philosopher. Savior of the Pistols?
Who really likes Pound’s work? The crackpot rantings in prose, the so-so verse, occasionally good as robbery. Forget the politics and the strange, dangerous, hidden, unsavory, life, and the fact that nobodies, for whatever reason, won’t shut up about him, as if every writer who knew Pound needed Pound to tuck them in at night. Who can stand him?
The Berlin Pistols have demoted Pound to the bullpen after his last five starts, in which the Pistols lost 16-11, lost 27-3, won 3-2 (Pound got a no decision) lost 24-7 and lost 22-14.
“We had to stop the bleeding,” Heidegger, the Pistols’ pitching coach, said. “It was bit embarrassing, but it’s just one of those things. Pound will collect himself, and he will be back. Something like this can happen to anyone.”
But as a team, even as Pound, one of their starters, was self-destructing, the Pistols turned it around.
It began with a 2-0 shutout thrown by William James in the Florence Banners’ home park.
At the time, the Pistols were 5-13.
After playing 17-13 ball in their last 30 games, the Pistols are now 3 games out of second place.
Ted Hughes, James Joyce, and William Butler Yeats are providing the power for Eva Braun’s club.
Ernest Hemingway and Horace Greeley have tried to fill Pound’s starting role, without much success.
Rumor has it the Pistols might give Rufus Griswold a shot.
The Devon Sun and the London Carriages of the Glorious Division both represent the glories of Britain and its Empire, but the Sun is less sunny; Lord Russell, who owns the Sun, was the Prime Minister, in the mid-19th century, in charge of looting the world and destroying the United States; his grandson, Bertrand, stellar out of the bullpen for the Sun, cuckolded the young American, T.S. Eliot. You get the idea: arrogant, profane, as well as entitled. Wordsworth, the green and sensitive face of Empire, leads the Sun with 9 home runs.
The Sun are fading a bit, but they received a glowing performance by John Ruskin.
Who is Ruskin? He was an art critic who coined ‘the pathetic fallacy’ was the intellectual founder of the Pre-Raphaelites, was sued for libel by James Whistler, and lost, and as a result, resigned his professorship at Oxford.
Stepping in for the injured John Stuart Mill, Ruskin won 2-1, and then over his next four starts, made history.
Perhaps urged on by his mound opponents’ pitching, Ruskin pitched not one, not two, not three, but four consecutive shutouts for the Sun, and every game was 1-0.
You can’t make this up.
This is why we play Poetry Baseball.
Will the league now sign James Whistler?
Another savior: Jonathan Swift, signed at the beginning of May by the Laureates, to replace Leigh Hunt.
Swift has won 6 of his 8 starts, with a 3.49 ERA, as Dublin is in second place, only 2 games out of first—tied with the Banners of Lorenzo de Medici.
Shelley, da Vinci, Virgil, and Dante are a solid starting core for the Banners, who are 16-8 at home, but only 9-15 on the road. Friedrich Schiller leads the Banners with 12 homers. John Keats is still in a slump, batting .214 with 2 homers. The Banners were the favorite to win at the start of the season. They will probably need a rejuvenated Keats to put them over the top. “What ails thee, John Keats?” the Banners fans cry.
Andrew Marvell has been a real ace for the first place Carriages, Charlotte Bronte and Charles Lamb have won 6 games in relief, and Tennyson leads Queen Victoria’s team with 10 homers; Robert Browning has 9.
GLORIOUS DIVISION STANDINGS
Carriages Queen Victoria 27-21
Laureates Nahum Tate 25-23
Banners de Medici 25-23
Pistols Eva Braun 22-26
The Sun PM John Russell 22-26
WINS
Andrew Marvell, Carriages 7-2
Percy Shelley, Banners 7-4
Jonathan Swift, Laureates 6-1
William James, Pistols 6-2
John Ruskin, Sun 5-1
Leonardo da Vinci, Banners 5-2
Virgil, Banners 5-4
Emerson, Sun 5-5
Virginia Woolf, Carriages 5-6
T.S. Eliot, Pistols 5-7
Santayana, Pistols 4-4
Samuel Johnson, Laureates 4-4
Dante, Banners 4-5
Relief
Bertrand Russell, Sun 5-1
Livy, Laureates 5-1
Charles Lamb, Carriages 3-0
Charlotte Bronte, Carriages 3-1
Dana Gioia, Laureates 3-2
HOMERS
Yeats, Pistols 16
Dickens, Laureates 16
James Joyce, Pistols 15
Aphra Behn, Laureates 13
Friedrich Schiller, Banners 12
Lord Tennyson, Carriages 10
Ted Hughes, Pistols 10
Robert Browning, Carriages 9
William Wordsworth, Sun 9
Alexandre Dumas, Laureates 9