HOME RUNS
Yeats currently leads; he plays for the last-place Pistols in the Glorious division. The truth is, pitching wins titles, not home runs, though America’s love affair with the home run is unceasing. The home run is the punchline of everything baseball. It’s a glory, only because the strike out and the weak grounder and the pop up are far more common. The only successful team with two sluggers high up on the leader board are the LA Gamers, managed by Bob Hope; Billy Collins and Eugene Ionesco have been a two-man wrecking crew for Merv Griffin’s team. Laughter and hi jinks live in LA’s dugout; but when it’s all over, will the Gamers prevail on the field?
WB Yeats 38
Victor Hugo 37
Wordsworth 37
Sophocles 35
Billy Collins 35
Dylan Thomas 34
Friedrich Schiller 34
Eugene Ionesco 34
Elizabeth Bishop 32
Sharon Olds 32
Aphra Behn 32
John Donne 31
Bob Dylan 31
Rimbaud 31
Edna Millay 30
Bobby Burns 30
Aristophanes 30
WH Auden 30
Longfellow 30
Rabelais 30
Robert Frost 30
EMPEROR
Rimini Broadcasters Bobby Burns 30, Rilke 23, Anne Sexton 20, Jim Morrison 12, Gregory Corso 8, Mick Jagger 7, Swinburne 6, Sappho 5, Coleridge 3, Nabokov 2, Leopardi 2, Edmund Waller 2
Corsica Codes Victor Hugo 37, Auden 30, Racine 28, Soyinka 12, Derek Walcott 8, Laforgue 7, Callimachus 7, Lati-Loutard 6, Homer 5, Mina Loy 4, John Clare 3
Madrid Crusaders Aeschylus 29, Anne Bradstreet 25, Mary Angela Douglas 20, Saint Ephrem 15, Phillis Wheatley 10, Joyce Kilmer 10, John Paul II 5, Mozart 4, Hopkins 3, Niebuhr 3, Cullen 3
Paris Goths Sophocles 35, Heine 25, Tasso 15, Madame de Stael 11, Chatterton 8, Holderlin 8, Dan Sociu 6, Ronsard 6, Herrick 5, Catulus 3, Herbert 2, Novalis 2
Rome Ceilings Euripides 25, Spenser 20, Michelangelo 14, Milton 10, Pindar 10, Tulsidas 8, William Blake 6, Petrarch 6, JR Lowell 5, RH Horne 4
GLORIOUS
Berlin Pistols WB Yeats 38, James Joyce 25, Ted Hughes 18, DH Lawrence 17, John Quinn 15, T.S. Eliot 10, Alistair Crowley 8, Ford Maddox Ford 7, Gertrude Stein 6, Filippo Marinetti 4, Alfred Orage 4
London Carriages Longfellow 30, Tennyson 28, Browning 19, Paul McCartney 13, GB Shaw 12, Elizabeth Barrett 10, Syliva Plath 8, Geoffrey Hill 8, Larkin 5, Marvell 5, Carol Ann Duffy 4
Florence Banners Friedrich Schiller 34, John Keats 24, DG Rossetti 20, Ben Mazer 13, Christina Rossetti 10, Thomas Wyatt 10, Cavalcanti 8, Dante 7, Thomas Moore 7, Stefan George 6, Glyn Maxwell 6, Shelley 6, Virgil 4
Devon Sun Wordsworth 37, Matthew Arnold 21, Rudyard Kipling 17, Horace Walpole 16, HG Wells 12, Emerson 10, Basil Bunting 8, John Davies 7, Margaret Fuller 7, Richard Steele 5, Joseph Addison 5, Marilyn Chin 5, Joy Harjo 4
Dublin Laureates Aphra Behn 32, Dickens 29, Dumas 28, Sarah Teasdale 20, JK Rowling 16, Ghalib 13, Pasternak 12, John Townsend Trowbridge 11, Oliver Goldsmith 8, Van Morrison 4, Rod McKuen 4
SOCIETY
Westport Actors Hafiz 27, Thomas Nashe 23, Gwendolyn Brooks 10, Amiri Baraka 10, Leonard Cohen 8, Johnny Rotten 7, Audre Lorde 4, David Bowie 4, Marilyn Hacker 3, Lucille Clifton 3, John Skelton 3, Etheridge Knight 3
Virginia Strangers Rimbaud 31, Rabelais 30, Ted Roethke 27, Knut Hamsun 9, Mary Shelley 6, Alexander Pope 6, Pessoa 5, Merwin 3, Franz Wright 3, Weldon Kees 3
Connecticut Animals Edward Lear 24, Wallace Stevens 20, Marianne Moore 15, Seamus Heaney 13, Ferlinghetti 12, Jack Spicer 10, Robinson Jeffers 4, Drayton 4, Ovid 4, Richard Wilbur 3, Mary Oliver 3, Tony Harrison 3
New York War Philip Sidney 21, Apollinaire 18, Harry Crosby 16, Stephen Crane 16, Wilfred Owen 14, James Dickey 11, Shakespeare 9, Howard Nemerov 7, Robert Graves 6, Alan Seeger 5, T.E. Hulme 4, Keith Douglas 4, Brooke 4
Boston Secrets Frost 30, Dickinson 25, Woody Guthrie 16, Kanye West 14, Nathaniel Hawthorne 9, Cole Porter 9, Paul Simon 9, Carl Sandburg 9, Stephen Cole 6, Edgar Poe 5, William Cullen Bryant 3, Paul Dunbar 3, Bob Tonucci 2
PEOPLES
Kolkata Cobras Jadoo Akhtar 29, Vikram Seth 28, George Harrison 27, Gajanan Muktibodh 14, Anand Thakore 11, Allen Ginsberg 9, Jeet Thayil 7, Adil Jussawala 5, Kalidasa 5, Tagore 4, Daipayan Nair 3, Samar Sen 3, Rumi 2
Tokyo Mist Hilda Doolittle 27, John Lennon 24, Sadakichi Hartmann 21, Yoko Ono 10, Haruki Murakami 6, Natsume Soseki 6, Gary Snyder 5, Izumi Shikabu 4, Cid Corman 4, Richard Brautigan 3, Doppo Kunikida 3, Basho 3
Beijing Waves Li Po 27, Tu Fu 24, Karl Marx 23, Brecht 13, Li He 8, Ho Chi Fang 7, Pablo Neruda 5, Gary B Fitzgerald 3, Voltaire 3, Li Young Lee 3, Billie Holiday 3, Bai Juyi 2, Wendell Berry 2
Santa Barbara Laws John Donne 31, Thomas Hardy 20, Walter Raleigh 17, Martial 14, Jane Kenyon 12, Donald Hall 8, Reed Whitmore 8, Gottfried Burger 8, Antonio Machado 6, Akhmatova 5, Horace 5, Donald Justice 4, Ajip Rosidi 3
LA Gamers Billy Collins 35, Eugene Ionesco 34, Thomas Hood 24, Joe Green 11, John Betjeman 10, Noel Coward 8, Ogden Nash 5, Ernest Thayer 4, Tristan Tzara 4, James Whitcomb Riley 3, XJ Kennedy 3, Archibald MacLeish 3
MODERN
Arden Dreamers Sharon Olds 32, Edna Millay 30, Louis MacNeice 29, Stevie Smith 11, Jack Gilbert 10, Louise Bogan 9, Richard Lovelace 8, Carolyn Forche 3, Propertius 3, Jean Valentine 3
Manhattan Printers Aristophanes 30, John Updike 28, Garcia Lorca 17, Andre Breton 11, John Ashbery 10, Kenneth Koch 9, Lou Reed 9, Hart Crane 7, James Merrill 7, Christopher Isherwood 7, Duchamp 7, James Baldwin 6
Chicago Buyers Dylan Thomas 34, Elizabeth Bishop 32, Robert Lowell 22, Edgar Lee Masters 12, Robert Penn Warren 9, Kenneth Rexroth 8, Walt Whitman 7, Duke Ellington 5, Jorie Graham 4
Philadelphia Crash Stephen Spender 26, Allen Tate 22, John Gould Fletcher 16, Franz Werfel 12, Archilochus 10, Donald Davidson 8, John Crowe Ransom 8, WC Williams 6, RIchard Howard 6, Stanley Kunitz 4
Phoenix Universe Bob Dylan 31, Juvenal 29, Paul Celan 22, Anthony Hecht 12, Delmore Schwartz 10, Chuck Berry 10, Maya Angelou 9, Galway Kinnell 5, Larry Levis 3, Philip Levine 3
BATTING AVG
Anne Bradstreet has 25 home runs to go with her stellar .372 batting average, as she and the surprising Mary Angela Douglas (.300, 20 homers) are close to earning a title for the Madrid Crusaders—the Rome Ceilings (4 .300 hitters, Euripides, Petrarch, William Blake, and Michelangelo—whose poetry is awesome, by the way) the favored team standing in their way, with just 10 games to go. Charles Dickens is hitting .354 with 29 blasts to lead the Dublin Laureates, who have the second best record in the league behind the Boston Secrets—who actually have a fairly modest hitting attack: no .300 hitters; Robert Frost leads the Secrets with 30, Emily Dickinson (who missed some games becomes of shyness) has 25, and next is Woody Guthrie at 16. Chuck Berry, lead-off hitter for Steven Spielberg’s Universe, has 10 homers and 20 steals to go with his league-leading .380 mark. William Yeats of the struggling Berlin Pistols not only leads the league in homers, he has a nice .307 batting average. Will he get the MVP? Or will it go to a player whose team wins a title?
Chuck Berry .380
Anne Bradstreet .372
Tennyson .355
Dickens .354
Rupert Brooke .351
Jack Gilbert .345
John Lennon .340
Alexandre Dumas .338
Aristophanes .335
Li Po .334
DH Lawrence .333
Philip Larkin .332
Vikram Seth .332
Rudyard Kipling .322
John Betjeman .321
Mary Shelley .320
Noel Coward .320
Derek Walcott .319
Seamus Heaney .316
Sarah Teasdale .315
EMPEROR
Broadcasters Mick Jagger .308, Sappho .303, Bobby Burns .299, Rilke .286, Bukowski .270, Anne Sexton .268, Jim Morrison .255, Gregory Corso .227
Codes Derek Walcott .319, Racine .311, Callimachus .310, Victor Hugo .280, WH Auden .279, Villon .240, Soyinka .233, Tati-Loutard .230
Crusaders Anne Bradstreet .372, Mary Angela Douglas .300, Saint Ephrem .296, Hilaire Belloc .280, Gerard Manley Hopkins .278, Joyce Kilmer .260, Aeschylus .252, Phillis Wheatley .249, Countee Cullen .239
Goths Heinrich Heine .295, Catullus .294, George Herbert .288, Ronsard .271, Tasso .266, Sophocles .263, Novalis .258, Robert Herrick .255, Madame de Stael .211
Ceilings Euripides .310, Petrarch .307, William Blake .302, Michelangelo .301, Edmund Spenser .250, Ferdowsi .248, Luis de Camoens .244, Tulsidas .243
GLORIOUS
Pistols DH Lawrence .333, Carl Jung .310, Yeats .307, James Joyce .290, Ford Maddox Ford .260, Ted Hughes .255, Gertrude Stein .222, Aleister Crowley .211
Carriages Tennyson .355, Philip Larkin .332, Longfellow .289, Paul McCartney .266, Robert Browning .265, Elizabeth Barrett .262, Sylvia Plath .251, Geoffrey Hill .233
Banners Thomas Moore .289, Christina Rossetti .281, DG Rossetti .279, John Keats .278, Ben Mazer .273, Guido Cavalcanti .270, Stefan George .269, Friedrich Schiller .250, Glyn Maxwell .247
Sun Rudyard Kipling .322, Wordsworth .295, John Davies .278, Matthew Arnold .275, Horace Walpole .266, Margaret Fuller .263, Basil Bunting .262, Robert Southey .260
Laureates Charles Dickens .354, Alexandre Dumas .338, Sarah Teasdale .315, Oliver Goldsmith .277, Aphra Behn .260, Gahlib .258, Pasternak .244, JK Rowling .230
SOCIETY
Actors Hafiz .297, Langston Hughes .288, John Skelton .283, Thomas Nashe .263, Amiri Baraka .248, Marilyn Hacker .243, Gwendolyn Brooks .240, Audre Lorde .212
Strangers Mary Shelley .320, Paul Verlaine .290, Rimbaud .271, Rabelais .266, Fernando Pessoa .255, Roethke .233, Laura Riding .224, Weldon Kees .202
Animals Seamus Heaney .316, Wallace Stevens .301, Marianne Moore .255, Jack Spicer .244, Edward Lear .242, Mary Oliver .237, Robinson Jeffers .229, Lawrence Ferlinghetti .217
War Rupert Brooke .351, Philip Sidney .305, Keith Douglas .271, Stephen Crane .247, Harry Crosby .233, Apollinaire .231, James Dickey .227, Howard Nemerov .218
Secrets Carl Sandburg .298, Cole Porter .295, Robert Frost .277, Emily Dickinson .275, Nathaniel Hawthorne .274, Paul Simon .268, Kanye West .265, Woody Guthrie .264
PEOPLES
Cobras Vikram Seth .332, Allen Ginsberg .313, Samar Sen .288, Jadoo Akhtar .284, George Harrison .280, Gajanan Muktibodh .278, Anand Thakore .271, Jeet Thayil .259
Mist John Lennon .340, Robert Duncan .292, Richard Brautigan .279, Sadakichi Hartmann .277, Gary Snyder .264, Yoko Ono .263, Hilda Doolittle .253, Cid Corman .211
Waves Li Po .334, Tu Fu .311, Karl Marx .254, Bertolt Brecht .251, Li He .248, Pablo Neruda .237, Ho Chi-Fang .233, Billie Holiday .231
Laws Jane Kenyon .300, Gottfried Burger .295, Martial .291, John Donne Thomas Hardy .286, Anna Akhmatova .281, Donald Hall .244, Antonio Machado .242
Gamers John Betjeman .321, Noel Coward .320, Billy Collins .279, Eugene Ionesco .276, Thomas Hood .272, Tristan Tzara .268, Ogden Nash .265, Joe Green .261
MODERN
Dreamers Jack Gilbert .345, Richard Lovelace .306, Carolyn Forche .281, Edna Millay .280, Sharon Olds .277, Louis MacNeice .270, Louise Bogan .260, Muriel Rukeyser .232
Printers Aristophanes .335, James Merrill .302, John Updike .291, John Ashbery .284, Garcia Lorca .270, Andre Breton .245, Hart Crane .238, Kenneth Koch .237
Buyers Jack Kerouac .309, Duke Ellington .301, Elizabeth Bishop .282, Dylan Thomas .256, Robert Penn Warren .249, Robert Lowell .248, Kenneth Rexroth .241, Edgar Lee Masters .240
Crash Allen Tate .311, Stanley Kunitz .278, Archilochus .271, John Gould Fletcher .265, Stephen Spender .251, WC Williams .247, Richard Howard .245, Donald Davidson .209
Universe Chuck Berry .380, Maya Angelou .310, Juvenal .255, Bob Dylan .252, Delmore Schwartz .249, Paul Celan .248, Phillip Levine .231, Anthony Hecht .230
STOLEN BASES
Sarah Teasdale is having a quietly phenomenal year for the Dublin Laureates; she has 20 homers and a .315 batting average to go with her 30 steals. The New York War has stolen the most bases as a team. Gerard Manley Hopkins has been a demon on the base baths for the Madrid Crusaders, who hope to upset the Ceilings in the ancient and talented Emperor Division.
Gerard Manley Hopkins, Crusaders 40
Rupert Brooke, War 36
Nathaniel Hawthorne, Secrets 34
Ben Mazer, Banners 34
Richard Brautigan, Mist 31
Sarah Teasdale, Laureates 30
Catullus, Goths 30
William Blake, Ceilings 28
Samar Sen, Cobras 27
John Skelton, Actors 25
Mary Shelley, Strangers 24
Li He, Waves 24
Robert Southey, Sun 23
DH Lawrence, Pistols 23
Carolyn Forche, Dreamers 22
Noel Coward, Gamers 21
Chuck Berry, Universe 20
Jack Kerouac, Buyers 20
Gottfried Burger, Laws 20
Keith Douglas, War 20
Langston Hughes, Actors 20
Heinrich Heine, Goths 20
Mick Jagger, Broadcasters 20
Jean Racine, Codes 20
Hafiz, Actors 19
Martial, Laws 19
Richard Lovelace, Dreamers 19
Elizabeth Bishop, Buyers 18
John Keats, Banners 17
Fernando Pessoa, Strangers 17
Stanley Kunitz, Crash 17
Philip Sidney, War 16
John Ashbery, Printers 16
Jack Spicer, Animals 16
Robert Duncan, Mist 16
WALKS
Isn’t it odd, that William Wordsworth and Robert Frost—who loved to reflectively ramble all over England/New England, and beyond, making a good walk central to their poems—should lead the league in bases-on-balls?
Wordsworth 105
Robert Frost 94
Sharon Olds 82
Gerard Manley Hopkins 77
Nathaniel Hawthorne 72
Ben Mazer 70
Victor Hugo 69
WB Yeats 68
Robert Southey 67
Richard Brautigan 65
WH Auden 64
Anne Bradstreet 63
Aristophanes 62
Sophocles 60
Henry Longfellow 59
Friedrich Schiller 58
Charles Dickens 55
Theodore Roethke 54
John Donne 52
Dylan Thomas 50
Fernando Pessoa 49
Jack Spicer 49
PITCHING
John Ruskin, a spot starter, accumulated just enough innings to qualify for the ERA title. He has 8 wins. He filled in for JS Mill of the woeful Sun in the Glorious division, and Ruskin, who doesn’t throw particularly hard, tossed an uncanny 4 straight 1-0 shutouts. Will we ever see anything like that, again? The Boston Secrets, who have the best record in the league, have 2 pitchers, Plato and Pushkin, in the top 6. Jonathan Swift (22-3) has been a force for the surprise Laureates, and Friedrich Handel (19-5) has been almost as impressive for the surprise Crusaders. Shelley (Florence Banners) has thrown 7 seven shutouts to lead everyone in that category, and Amy Lowell has shocked the world by going 21-5 with a 2.74 ERA and 4 shutouts for the Animals. Rumi (19-9) has emerged as the ace/savior for the Kolkata Cobras—who are in a desperate fight for the Peoples Division crown with the Beijing Waves—Voltaire has put together a good season for Chairman Mao’s club: 17-12 with two shutouts. It’s a long season; Voltaire was 1-3 in April and missed a game because of soreness in his left leg. John Crowe Ransom of the Crash was 0-4, and hurt, and didn’t win his first game until the middle of May; now he’s 15-11 with 3 shutouts and 249 strikeouts. John’s teammate John Dewey is 18-11 with 4 shutouts; Dewey suffered a stretch in May and June where he was 1-7 with 3 no decisions, as the Philadelphia Crash lost 5 times by one run. Many a pitcher in this league has respectable 15-17 win seasons, who could have given up when tough losses were piling up. Then there are pitchers like Plato, who always seem to have it easy: 23 wins, a 2.26 ERA, and a league-leading 349 strikeouts. But the next season is about to begin—the 2020 Scarriet playoffs. And anything can happen. A bad hop grounder might break your heart. So let’s take a pause, and admire these stats, which hide a lot of blood, sweat, and tears.
Plato 23-7 2.26 5 Shutouts 349 K
Swift 22-3 2.77 2 SO 185 K
Shelley 22-8 2.67 7 SO 341 K
Amy Lowell 21-5 2.74 4 SO 239 K
Handel 19-5 2.44 6 SO 265 K
Rumi 19-9 3.40 3 SO 175 K
Pushkin 18-4 3.58 5 SO 318 K
Ovid 18-10 3.63 6 SO 325 K
Chateaubriand 18-11 2.90 4 SO 259 K
Dewey 18-11 3.44 4 SO 260 K
Milton 17-10 2.42 6 SO 315 K
Wilde 17-10 2.78 6 SO 310 K
Remarque 17-11 3.02 4 SO 242 K
Virgil 17-11 3.11 4 SO 260 K
Voltaire 17-12 3.70 2 SO 175 K
Gandhi 17-14 4.88 3 SO 99 K
Homer 16-7 3.37 3 SO 194 K
Lao Tzu 16-11 2.98 4 SO 255 K
Marvell 16-11 3.07 5 SO 271 K
Hegel 16-11 3.41 4 SO 170 K
Nin 16-15 3.99 1 SO 185 K
Ransom 15-11 3.41 3 SO 249 K
Lucretius 15-15 4.53 2 SO 168 K
Bacon 15-16 3.41 4 SO 241 K
Shakespeare 14-9 4.01 2 SO 214 K
Chaucer 14-10 3.24 6 SO 292 K
Verne 14-10 3.32 1 SO 113 K
Ariosto 14-11 3.03 4 SO 155 K
Pope 14-11 4.05 4 SO 235 K
Goethe 14-12 2.81 2 SO 281 K
Engle 14-12 3.10 1 SO 199 K
Twain 14-12 3.18 1 SO 220 K
Aristotle 14-12 3.33 3 SO 239 K
Dante 14-12 3.41 1 SO 210 K
Tagore 14-13 2.79 2 SO 148 K
Carroll 14-13 3.02 5 SO 281 K
TS Eliot 14-14 3.20 5 SO 260 K
Freud 14-15 3.69 5 SO 288 K
Horace 14-15 4.29 0 SO 176 K
Beethoven 13-5 2.18 3 SO 200 K
RL Stevenson 13-5 3.78 1 SO 89 K
Dryden 13-10 2.55 4 SO 225 K
Poe 13-10 3.19 4 SO 290 K
Hesse 13-12 2.91 3 SO 184 K
Stowe 13-13 2.79 6 SO 298 K
Huxley 13-13 3.44 0 SO 140 K
Moliere 13-13 4.36 2 SO 211 K
Virginia Woolf 13-14 2.99 1 SO 112 K
Atwood 13-14 5.01 0 SO 133 K
Hazlitt 13-16 4.09 3 SO 144 K
Whitman 13-15 2.97 2 SO 232 K
Rousseau 13-15 4.11 3 SO 189 K
Issa 13-17 3.84 1 SO 132 K
Ruskin 8-3 1.44 4 SO 95 K
~~~
Scarriet Poetry Baseball reporting