THE OLD ENTHUSIAST.
By S.E. Kiser.
There's a glad old-fashioned feeling stealing over me once more;
I forget that I'm gray-headed and am verging on threescore;
There are many weighty matters that my earnest care should claim—
But come, old man, let's knock off and go out and see the game.
Let's get a bag of peanuts, and be boys again and shout
For the men who lam the leather and who line three-baggers out;
Let's go out and root and holler, and forget that we have cares,
And that still the world has markets which are worked by bulls and bears.
Every year or two they tell us that baseball is out of date;
But each spring it's back in fashion when they line up at the plate,
When the good old, glad old feeling comes again to file its claim—
When a man can turn from trouble and go out and see the game.
I can feel the warm blood rushing through my veins again—hooray!
See those slender pennants waving? Hear the umpire calling "Play!"
Yah, you bluffer—no, you didn't—aw, say, umpire, that's a shame!
What? Two strikes? Come off, you robber! Well, you're rotten all the same!
Oh, if we'd a man like Anson or Dan Brouthers used to be,
To hold down that first bag—say, what a corker that was! Gee!
Go it! Slide, you chump—you've got to—never touched him! Yip! Hurrah!
Say, that boy's a wonder—hold it! Ah, the dub, they've caught him—pshaw!
Ever see John Ward as short-stop? There's the boy that had the head!
Why, if we had him out yonder he would scare those fellows dead!
And Mike Kelly—Whee-e-e! A beauty! Home run, sure as Brown's my name!
Downed 'em nine to eight, by golly! Wasn't it a corkin' game?
Chicago Record-Herald.