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Bob Hope’s Gamers are on fire in the Peoples Division
Here’s what the Peoples Division in the Scarriet Poetry Baseball League looked like at the All Star Break:
Kolkata Cobras 47 33 –
Santa Barbara Laws 41 39 6
Beijing Waves 39 41 8
Tokyo Mist 36 44 11
LA GAMERS 35 45 12
Here’s what it looks like now!
LA GAMERS 60 52 –
Beijing Waves 58 54 2
Kolkata Cobras 58 54 2
Santa Barbara Laws 57 55 3
Tokyo Mist 45 67 15
“The minor, melancholy poets who haunt the bench, staring and moving slowly, in the shadows of the dugout—this inspires me more than the throaty crowds,” Gamers third baseman Joe Green said, almost in a trance, after he homered to lead the Gamers to their 14th win in 16 games.
In the beginning of the year, the starting pitchers for Merv Griffin’s Gamers were Lewis Carroll, E.E. Cummings, James Tate, and Jacques Derrida.
The starting rotation is now Carroll, Democritus, Charlie Chaplin, and Woody Allen.
Manager Bob Hope and Jacques Derrida didn’t get along from the start. Derrida’s fancy pitching was too often completely out of the strike zone, or right over the plate–there wasn’t enough painting of the corners. Antoine de Saint Exupery was brought in to replace Derrida, but his uncanny and charming delivery didn’t work, either, and he was replaced by Woody Allen (7-2).
James Tate was a .500 hurler who didn’t get along with the manager, either—Garrison Keillor was brought in, a good fast ball, a good knuckle curve, but he and Bob Hope had issues, too, and when Charlie Chaplin became available Merv Griffin got out his checkbook—the silent comedian is 5-3.
Democritus began in the bullpen, and is 8-4 since replacing E.E. Cummings in the starting rotation.
Lewis Carroll, the one starter still there, has found his groove, tossing back to back shutouts in his last two starts—his curve is now sharper than ever.
The Gamers were a circus of errors in the beginning of the year, but a sense of humor has helped the team not to get down on itself and they’re fielding much better lately.
When Carroll out-dueled Aristotle 3-2, Billy Collins fielding a double neatly off the wall, relaying to Green—whose throw just beat John Donne at the plate for the win—something stirred in the Gamer “team soul.”
The Gamers were 26 and 38 when Lewis Carroll beat the Laws in that game, and they’ve been 33 and 14 since.
“We have 3 teams right beyond us in the standings,” Hope reminded the press, “so we have to stay as relaxed as we were when we were in last place.” And he grinned.
Hope’s managing style is not all fun and games, however. Off-the-field tensions are an everyday thing for the Gamers, a team of poets who don’t take themselves too seriously, but nonetheless want to win.
Menander, the Gamers bullpen work horse, put it this way: “When Bob [Hope] doesn’t like you, he lets you know right away. A good joke from you is the only thing that can save you,”
Menander is 5-0 in relief during the Gamers’ successful run. The Gamers have recently welcomed MC Ecsher and Muhammad Ali into the bullpen as relief specialists.
“We really want to win this thing,” Joe Green said.
Here’s what the other divisions look like.
The Laureates are not quite as hot as the Gamers, but they now have a four game lead over the Dante-Shelley-Virgil Banners, who were the team to beat in the first half of the season. Starters Blaise Pascal, Robert Louis Stevenson, and Jonathan Swift—none with the Laureates when the season began—are the reason for the Dublin’s success, along with the hitting of Alexandre Dumas and Charles Dickens.
Dublin Laureates 64 48 –
Florence Banners 60 52 4
London Carriages 57 55 7
Devon Sun 51 61 13
Berlin Pistols 49 63 15
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In the Modern Division, it’s still a close race between Rockefeller’s stable Buyers and Steven Spielberg’s every-changing Universe. The Philadelphia Crash has moved into third place, with starting pitchers Ransom, Dewey, and Wittgenstein finally starting to pile up wins. The Buyers’ Elizabeth Bishop, who cooled off a bit in July, still leads the league with 30 home runs. Bob Dylan leads the Universe with 24.
New York Buyers 61 51 –
Phoenix Universe 59 53 2
Philadelphia Crash 55 57 6
Manhattan Printers 52 60 9
Arden Dreamers 50 62 11
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In the Society Division, Ben Franklin’s Boston Secrets continue to dominate, with the best record in the league—71 wins! Poe is finally looking like an ace—and Plato is already an 18 game winner; both the Secrets starting pitching and clutch-hitting have been unmatched. Boston catcher Emily Dickinson (20 homers) recently missed two weeks, and Stephen Cole (5 homers) filled in admirably. The Secrets’ Robert Frost 24 homers leads the Society Division.
Boston Secrets 71 41 –
New York War 60 52 11
Connecticut Animals 60 52 11
Westport Actors 48 64 23
Virginia Strangers 43 69 28
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The Ceilings, with Milton as their ace, Bach as their stopper (and they just added Vivaldi as a middle reliever) are tied with the Goths—who just added Dostoevsky as their stopper, and feature Goethe as their ace. The Crusaders, the devout team from Madrid, are close behind in second, tied with Napoleon’s Codes. Madrid now has Scarlatti in their bullpen, and since they added Mozart and Beethoven as starters, they are stellar contenders; the Corsica Codes featuring Homer, Cicero, and Hegel as starters, and Kant in the bullpen, round out the four clubs which look good to win the Emperor division. The Broadcasters, with George Orwell used as starter and reliever as needed, and Coleridge and Nabokov in the starting rotation, are 10 back in fifth place. Victor Hugo of the Codes leads the division with 29 homers; Sophocles leads the first-place Goths in long balls with 25.
Paris Goths 60 52 –
Rome Ceilings 60 52 –
Madrid Crusaders 57 55 3
Corsica Codes 57 55 3
Rimini Broadcasters 50 62 10
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Scarriet Baseball Poetry reporting