Raffy at the Bat

The outlook wasn't brilliant for the B-more O’s that day;

Chi-town had out their brooms, for a sweep those boys would pray;
And then, when Mora lined to first, Tejada did the same,

A sickly silence fell upon this long Camden Yards game.

A few had left their seats, Beltway traffic they did fear,
But the rest stayed and hoped for one loud and final cheer.
They thought, if only Raffy could but get a whack at that,

The White Sox would unravel, with Raffy at the bat.

But Roberts precedes Raffy, and so did Byrnes-y, too.
And the former was a rookie and the latter, just too new.
So, with the closer throwing fire and a curve that’s far from flat,
There seemed but little chance of Raffy's getting to the bat.

But B-Rob smashed a single, to the wonderment of all,

And Byrnes, just into town, tore the cover off the ball,

And when the dust had lifted and men saw what had occurred,

There was Byrnes-y safe at second, and Brian over there on third.

Twenty-five thousand fans, they got up on their feet
For the O’s were all but escaping from the harsh jaws of defeat
As if Ripken was still playing, the faithful roared loudly at that,
For Raffy, mighty Raffy, was advancing to the bat.

Mr. Palmeiro was quite the batsman, part of a club that’s quite elite,
His hit count over 3,000, overflowing his stat sheet.
But to call him a singles hitter, well that would be a lark,
For over 500 times he swung and drilled the pitch out of the park.

He has played for many teams, and has worn many a shirt,
From his Ranger days in Texas, with the Cubbies he did flirt.
But as if it were the nineties, a jersey he had worn once before,
The man with the mustache now played for Baltimore.

A designated hitter, with few others could compare,
Mighty Raffy could be counted on to blast one through the air.
Any second now, with B-Rob and Byrnes-y there on base,
He would step out of that dugout, and they’d see his smiling face.

They could picture all the headlines, from tomorrow morning’s Sun
“Palmeiro and his Walk-off, the Orioles have won!”
But before they start the presses, the hero must appear,
The on-deck circle remaining empty, for what feels to be a year.

The call was Lee Mazilli’s, Baltimore’s faithful skipper,
To give his man the green light, to step out and deliver.
And just as he was going to point Raffy to head out to the plate,
The dugout phone, it rang, he answered, and told the man to wait.

This was not the news Mazilli expected it to be,
The league’s office was calling, on a matter void of glee.
A certain test had come back, and to nobody’s avail,
The score of a certain slugger fell in the wrong of pass v. fail.

As the mighty Raffy took one step onto the field,
His manager had recalled him, this new news he had revealed,
And with Roberts standing only 90 feet from home,
Out stepped but B.J. Surhoff, a pinch hitter, all alone.

And as Surhoff swung and whiffed a third and final time,
The crown wondered how Raffy could commit this awful crime,
A hero reduced to nothing, “Liar!” they would shout,
And there is no joy in Baseball -- mighty Raffy has Struck Out.