Hometown Piece for Messrs. Alston and Reese

To the tune: 

"Li'l baby, don't say a word: Mama goin' to buy you a mocking-bird. 

Bird don't sing: Mama goin' to sell it and buy a brass ring."

"Millennium," yes; "pandemonium"! 

Roy Campanella leaps high. Dodgerdom

crowned, had Johnny Podres on the mound. 

Buzzie Bavasi and the Press gave ground;

the team slapped, mauled, and asked the Yankees' match, 

"How did you feel when Sandy Amoros made the catch?"

"I said to myself"—pitcher for all innings— 

"as I walked back to the mound I said, 'Everything's

getting better and better.' " (Zest, they've zest. 

" 'Hope springs eternal in the Brooklyn breast.' "

And would the Dodger Band in 8, row 1, relax 

if they saw the collector of income tax?

Ready with a tune if that should occur: 

"Why Not Take All of Me—All of Me, Sir?")

Another series. Round-tripper Duke at bat, 

"Four hundred feet from home-plate"; more like that.

A neat bunt, please; a cloud-breaker, a drive 

like Jim Gilliam's great big one. Hope's alive.

Homered, flied out, fouled? Our "stylish stout" 

so nimble Campanella will have him out.

A-squat in double-headers four hundred times a day, 

he says that in a measure the pleasure is the pay:

catcher to pitcher, a nice easy throw 

almost as if he'd just told it to go.

Willy Mays should be a Dodger. He should— 

a lad for Roger Craig and Clem Labine to elude;

but you have an omen, pennant-winning Peewee, 

on which we are looking superstitiously.

Ralph Branca has Preacher Roe's number; recall? 

and there's Don Bessent; he can really fire the ball.

as for Gil Hodges, in custody of first— 

"He'll do it by himself." Now a specialist versed

in an extension reach far into the box seats— 

he lengthens up, he leans, and gloving the ball defeats

expectation by a whisker. The modest star, 

irked by one misplay, is no hero by a hair;

in a strikeout slaughter when what could matter more, 

he lines a homer to the signboard and has changed the score.

Then for his nineteenth season, a home run— 

with four of six runs batted in—Carl Furillo's the big gun;

almost dehorned the foe—has fans dancing in delight. 

Jake Pitler and his Playground "get a Night"—

Jake, that hearty man, made heartier by a harrier 

who can bat as well as field—Don Demeter.

Shutting them out for nine innings—a hitter too— 

Carl Erskine leaves Cimoli nothing to do.

Take off the goat-horns, Dodgers, that egret 

which two very fine base-stealers can offset.

You've got plenty: Jackie Robinson 

and Campy and big Newk, and Dodgerdom again 

watching everything you do. You won last year. Come on.

~ Marianne Moore