Marianne Moore

Marianne Moore was the best on baseball

insofar as she was an actual fan.

Fields of green are fine, but they don’t stack up

against watching your team win on TV.

Moore’s actual writing on baseball is meh,

Brooklyn Trolleydodger doggerel meh,

the inevitable meh of comparing the sport

to writing because oh boy, writing, oh boy!

But, as the Bible asks, ‘For whom

hath a more pitiful existence than he

whose neighbour is learning to play

clarinet?’ It’s not the end of the world.

Many writers are baseball fans. Literature

and sports are products eagerly consumed

by millions. You don’t have to take a test.

You just have to cheer for some team to win.