"Line-Up for Yesterday: An ABC of Baseball Immortals" is a poem written by

Ogden Nash Frederic Ogden Nash (August 19, 1902 – May 19, 1971) was an American poet well known for his light verse, of which he wrote over 500 pieces. With his unconventional rhyming schemes, he was declared by ''The New York Times'' the country's best ...

for the January 1949 issue of ''

SPORT Magazine ''Sport'' was an American sports magazine. Launched in September 1946 by New York-based publisher Macfadden Publications, ''Sport'' pioneered the generous use of color photography – it carried eight full-color plates in its first edition. '' ...

''. In the poem, Nash dedicates each letter of the alphabet to a legendary

Major League Baseball Major League Baseball (MLB) is a professional baseball organization and the oldest major professional sports league in the world. MLB is composed of 30 total teams, divided equally between the National League (NL) and the American League (AL), ...

player. The poem pays tribute to 24 players altogether, plus one winking reference to himself (under "I") as a fan of the game, and concludes with a final stanza in homage to the players collectively.

Baseball players referred to in the poem

Statistics

*18 of the players were also in the

Hall of Fame A hall, wall, or walk of fame is a list of individuals, achievements, or other entities, usually chosen by a group of electors, to mark their excellence or Wiktionary:fame, fame in their field. In some cases, these halls of fame consist of actu ...

at the time, and all but one (Bobo Newsom) would eventually be inducted. *8 players—Cobb, Gehrig, Hornsby, Johnson, Mathewson, Ruth, Wagner, and Young—would be elected to the All Century Team in 1999.

External links

{{Portal, Baseball, Poetry
Full text of the poem
American poems Baseball poems 1949 poems Works originally published in American magazines Works originally published in sports magazines Cultural depictions of Babe Ruth Cultural depictions of baseball players Cultural depictions of American men Ty Cobb