I like this post, Travis. Paul Fattaruso has a great poem featuring six or seven baseball players with wonderful-sounding names. Maybe Paul will post it for us? He lives in Philly now, but I think Perez's love for Ashbery and Creeley has introduced a conflict as to who to root for.

go cubs?
jmw

An out poetry-reading baseball player? In this country, a football player has to be careful even about what newspaper he reads. Graham Le Saux, who played for Chelsea in the 80s and 90s, and was at one point English football's most expensive defender, turned up for his first day at the club in a state of wondrous innocence: "The only people I knew in London were students*, so I turned up at training with my student look: jeans rolled up, Pringle socks and my rucksack with The Guardian in it." He also liked antiques and went to art galleries but it was The Guardian that led to his being virulently mocked and ostracised. (See"David Beckham called me a poof.") Le Saux published his autobiography last year. It seems likely that he has read the odd poem, more likely that he's written one.

*If someone here calls you a "student", they are probably trying to insult you, especially if the word is elaborated into "student-type".

I found occasion to comment on this year’s World Series (and a few other things, including the upcoming election, Ron’s blog, and flarf) here, here, and here.

I kinda wish the Rays had come back – as will be apparent on a first read – but I’m glad for Pedro Feliz, who played so long for “my” team, the San Francisco Giants. So . . . which poems of Ashbery and Creeley do you think Perez read?

Bill Lee didn't throw the no-hitter on acid, Doc Ellis did. Allegedly.

R

Perez reminds me of Eric Cantona, the French footballer who famously played for Manchester United in the 1990's. He was a sportsman not afraid to expose his literary interests and he went on to develop a fairly successful career as an actor. In one famous interview he described the way the british press followed his every movement thus, "When the seagulls follow the trawler, it is because they think sardines will be thrown into the sea". Rather less impressively he is now the manager of the French Beach Football Team.

Football poem - http://dunstancarter.wordpress.com/index.php?s=rush+goalies

Miguel Batista has written a book of poems.

That was some good baseball in this past World Series!

Donald Hall wrote a book with Dock Elllis: In the Country of Baseball. Dock Ellis is dying of liver problems. :(

2 good baseball lit mags: Elysian Fields Quarterly and Spitball