This is round 2 of Humbugardy. I’m your host, Alex Scorebard.

Note: In this round, searching the web is allowed.

This is round 2 of Humbugardy. I’m your host, Alex Scorebard.

Note: In this round, searching the web is allowed.

This is round 2 of Humbugardy. I’m your host, Alex Scorebard.

Note: In this round, searching the web is allowed.

This is round 2 of Humbugardy. I’m your host, Alex Scorebard.

Note: In this round, searching the web is allowed.

Welcome to Humbugardy. I’m your host, Alex Scorebard.

Here are the rules for the double humbugardy: I will provide the answer, you provide the question. The answers and questions will all be related to either baseball and poetry somehow, but not necessarily both.

The first person with the winning question gets the points, and gets to choose the next answer.

The question must be in the form of a question. If the answer is a poem (or part of one), the question must not only be correct, it must scan correctly to complete the poem.

When I announce that the answer is questioned correctly, the winner can then choose the next answer. After which, I’ll post the next answer. I’ll post one or two answers per day, at random times.

In this round, you are allowed to use the web to research.

Ready to start? The first person to comment below can pick the first answer from the following categories:

The current standings:

The Astros get right out to work.
Biggio singles, and Berk
Earns a walk.
Ensberg, a knock,
Scores the first run as a perk.

Pettitte, the pick by his skip,
With a great ERA, also WHIP,
Gets two quick outs,
Easing the doubts,
Then gives up a homer to Chip.

Inning three, Hudson loses command.
The ball wildly flies from his hand.
Two walks and two hits
Are giving him fits
Two runs down isn’t quite what he planned.

Andrew Jones in the fourth overthrew
A sac fly, but later came through,
Put the throw in the past
With a much needed blast
Helping the Braves to score two.

Abruptly in frame number five
Hudson’s command comes alive.
Pettitte’s sharp, too.
This inning flew.
It goes quickly when both pitchers thrive.

The sixth is quick, too, but alas,
Hudson then runs out of gas.
Ensberg once more
Drives in a score.
The Braves have a two-run morass.

In the eighth frame, Atlanta’s relief
Puts fans into stunned disbelief.
The Astronauts soar,
Five runners score,
The crowd’s hopes all turn into grief.

The Braves give their fans one more thrill.
They rally and battle until
A Furcal double play.
To the home fans’ dismay,
They now trail in games, one to nil.

The Yankees could not opportune it
To boost series chances with Unit
Starting two games.
They’ve got title claims,
But this little fact could harpoon it.

Contreras–game five? I thought surely
The White Sox, who clinched it so early,
Were playing a joke.
He’s set up to choke.
I tell ya, they shoulda used Buehrle.

The Padres are hoping that Peavy
Will sign, seal, deliver like Stevie.
And with two wins by Jake,
They would need one more break.
But to bet on that would be naïvy.

This is Humbugardy. I’m your host, Alex Scorebard.

Note: Using the web to search is cheating…you gotta know (or guess) off the top of your head.

This is Humbugardy. I’m your host, Alex Scorebard.

Note: Using the web to search is cheating…you gotta know (or guess) off the top of your head.

I just updated the Periodic Table of Blogs. In that spirit, here’s some bonus blog browsing:

• Faster than light: If you’re going to write about baseball, there’d better be some poetry in it.
   
• Boo!
   
• Greg Perry Son Rivers has a poem and a painting about Fenway Park.
   
• A hole in the radio: some wonderful baseball haiku.
   
• “Pitchers are obviously not human. They have the ghosts of dead people in them.”: Jack Spicer. (Via Octopus Magazine.)

This is Humbugardy. I’m your host, Alex Scorebard.

Note: Using the web to search is cheating…you gotta know (or guess) off the top of your head.

This is Humbugardy. I’m your host, Alex Scorebard.

Note: Using the web to search is cheating…you gotta know (or guess) off the top of your head.

This is Humbugardy. I’m your host, Alex Scorebard.

This was a Double Up round. Wagers were made here.

Update: Derek Smart was the only person to get the correct question: What are pitchers? He bet 100, so he won 200 points.

Note: Using the web to search is cheating…you gotta know (or guess) off the top of your head.

A baseball owner visits an executive, and says, “We’re a small-market baseball team, and we’d like you to be our new GM.”

The executive says, “Sorry, I don’t do small markets. I’d just be swimming upstream.”

The owner says, “But our ballpark is really a gem.”

The executive says, “Okay, then, sing to me: how’s your team?”

The owner says:

Oh budded bellbottoms,
Thy pitchertations are to me
As gobbled gubiczotchlets
On a lowery buck
That runelvysly goeth hocking hocking hocking
Hocking out its long brown hubers
Into a rancid howell chip!
Now thou must suck the stemlid guiel
Slurping sweenely up the greinkeloogies
And dip living gotays
Down thy snotted sisco stairs
While certain lima leoslime
Beneath the bayless brett berroan
Gloop doth dare make ewing not teahendrones.
Go camp and carrascolate under my snyde,
Amborixing my dougals
With slimy slimy blancowoodles,
Or else I shall slide thy gobblewarts over my burgoscruncheon
See if I don’t.

The owner looks at the executive and says, “That’s what we’ve got. Aren’t you enthralled?”

The executive sits silently, then finally says, “That’s quite a team. What are you called?”

The owner says, “The Royals!”

We won’t call it a “Daily Double”, because it isn’t really daily. But it’s time to double up (or more!), if you can.

Here’s how it works:

• The category is “Literary Baseball for 500”.
• Everybody who is on the board is eligible to bet any amount they have, or up to 500 points, whichever is greater.
• Place your bets in the comments below. I will close betting at 11pm PT tonight. If you don’t bet, I’ll assume your bet is zero.
• Shaun P will choose the time and day that I will post the answer. It can be any time of his choice, Saturday through Monday, subject to negotiation if I have a schedule conflict.
• At the exact time Shaun P chooses, I will post the answer, with comments closed. You then have ten minutes to email me your question, at scorebard AT yahoo Dot com.
• The first correct email I receive will win double their bet. Any subsequent correct emails will win their exact bet. Otherwise, you lose your exact bet.

This is Humbugardy. I’m your host, Alex Scorebard.

Note: Using the web to search is cheating…you gotta know (or guess) off the top of your head.

This is Humbugardy. I’m your host, Alex Scorebard.

Note: Using the web to search is cheating…you gotta know (or guess) off the top of your head.

This is Humbugardy. I’m your host, Alex Scorebard.

Note: Using the web to search is cheating…you gotta know (or guess) off the top of your head.