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.

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.

The math requires them.

Invisible variables
   to balance out
every equation.

   Massless particles
      to fill the gaps
   in the universe.

The bell tail
   to complete the curve
of the economy.

The math requires them.

      The math tells them.

      Run the bases adequately,
         without freedom, without creativity.
      Advance only when forced to advance.

         Slip the first baseman's glove over your fingers,
            but do not dream to use it.
         The pitcher's hands now own its privileges.

      Go quarantine right field,
         and do not leave the area.
      Every ball you touch turns dead.

      The math tells them.

The math betrays them.

When the mother calls
   it's time for dinner boys
they stay outside, and starve.

   When the wind blows
      too cold to keep playing boys
   they are forgotten, and freeze.

When the storm rains down
   come inside and dry off boys
they overflow with outrage, and drown.

The math betrays them.

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.