Comments on: Doug Bird

By: ramblin' pete

ramblin' pete — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 01:30:29 +0000

ah … such a rich history of
the so-called “poetry of the game,”

spanning the ages and encompassing such classic works as
“Casey at the Bat” and “Baseball’s Sad Lexicon (aka/ Tinker to Evers to Chance,” lyrical excursions into the popular song form,
like “Joltin’ Joe DiMaggio,” “Talkin’ Baseball (Willie Mickey and the Duke),” and “Van Lingle Mungo,”
groundbreaking stanzas of free association,
like “The Collected Works of Phil Rizzuto,”
or even George Will’s florid babblings about
“pastoral simplicity,” and “green cathedrals…”

The Sport and the Form blend together naturally,
often seamlessly,
able to be appreciated both seperately and together,
two components of expressionistic image,
and infinite variety,
to the delight of the fan…

“…dat shows, right there, how THROWED she is,
thermistat couldn’t tell how COLD she is,
then she did the splits
like an olympicists
started laughin at my date, she a bowler bitch,
don’t do it like that, girl
gonna make her start shootin off her gat, girl
cause when she mad she don’t know how to act, girl,
but you my boy so I give you dab girl,
Do yo THang Just…
Bend ya Kneez!
touch ya toes
and whoever don’t like it
tell em fuck you ho’s!
now shake ya hips
give it all ya can
tell them hata broads
‘Bitch I’ll take ya man!!’ ”

- inspired verse
courtesy of my “dawg,” aka.

Lastings D. Milledge
(poet laureate of Allegheny county)

By: Powder Blue Prince

Powder Blue Prince — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 15:50:30 +0000

13. The Littel incident is by far the worst memory ever. My 9 year old psyche was forever damaged from that one pitch. Heck, it was only in the last few years that I stopped hating Mark Littel. It's hard to hold on to such animosity when the dude has invented something like the Nutty Buddy jock strap.

By: Josh Wilker

Josh Wilker — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 16:42:20 +0000

12. 11 : I was wondering when someone was going to bring up Doug Bird's most infamous mound moment. It's surely not as awful in Royals fans' memories as the Littell-Chambliss homer in '76, but it's gotta be in the top ten (or is it the bottom ten?).

By: Powder Blue Prince

Powder Blue Prince — Sat, 28 Jun 2008 19:22:51 +0000

11. Doug Bird's smiling face only brings back the nightmare of the 1978 ALCS and the glowering visage of Munson and a towering 8th inning shot that staked the Yankees to a 2-1 series lead. I knew then with a fatal intinct that should have been foreign to an 11 year old that the Royals would lose their 3rd ALCS in a row against those damn Yankees. Which they would losing 2-1 in a game where the Yankees only managed 4 hits to the Royals 7 proving the quality over quantity theory.

By: Josh Wilker

Josh Wilker — Sat, 21 Jun 2008 14:43:34 +0000

10. 9 : This might sound sarcastic but it isn't: I feel richer knowing that Swen Nater used and broke his girlfriend's mother's golf clubs.

By: 68elcamino427

68elcamino427 — Sat, 21 Jun 2008 08:42:15 +0000

9. Nater dated my sister back in the day, big UCLA stud. What in the heck was she thinking about?
Nater fancied himself as a golfer and he would use my Mom’s old golf clubs to play with. Then he broke one and didn’t bother to replace it. I thought that was so lame, this seven footer using clubs made for a woman 5’4″. After that, every time I saw him I began continually asking him in the form of a greeting, “How’s the weather up there?”. Oh, Nater didn’t care for that at all.
So Mr. Bird, how are your Weathermen doing today? You owe them, don’t you think? Peace.

By: ToyCannon

ToyCannon — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 18:44:20 +0000

8. 7 Who knows how many lives were changed by that one act.

By: Josh Wilker

Josh Wilker — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 18:17:02 +0000

7. 6 : Ha! Here's a 2003 article about Bird (some of my friends who have worked on young adult books might recognize name of the author, Norman Macht) in which Bird reflects on his career, making sure to express his gratitude for an anonymous antiwar activist: "There were two weeks to go in the semester," Bird recalled, "and I just packed up my car and went home. Two weeks later I got a notice to report for a physical and immediate induction into the Army. Then somebody blew up the draft board in South Pasadena. All the paperwork went up in smoke. By the time they got everything straightened out, they had switched over to a lottery system where they drew lots with birthdates on them. My number was up in the 280s, and they never called me. "If I knew who blew up the draft board, I'd thank him, cause otherwise I'd have been gone. End of baseball career."

By: Joe Romano

Joe Romano — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 18:09:40 +0000

6. Bird looks like an extra from a Cheech & Chong movie.

By: Ennui Willie Keeler

Ennui Willie Keeler — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 03:49:43 +0000

5. I expect the next entry to be on Danny Walton or perhaps another Danny. Bird was from Corona, CA. According to Whiskeypedia, Corona used to be a largely agricultural community, dominated by citrus orchards, ranches, and dairy farms. So, yeah, I can see him hanging out at the fair, waiting for the tractor pull or maybe the horse races. I don't think Corona is all that far from Pomona; esp in a poetic sense.