No theory will stand up to Joe Morgan's clucks
Discussing how Billy Beane wrote
No book without niggling details
About a team that can't do "his" things
No theory that does not make sense
At the hot air escaping.

Any theory predicting a season
Will force me to start crying out pleas on
The topic of "Why
Did red birds bleed and die
At Astros' hands?" I can't find the reason.

?

Lines On My Decision Not to Renew My Dodger Season Tickets Due to the Firing of Paul DePodesta

First a walk, then a walk,
Then a walk, homer;
Four runs would score then in
Chavez Ravine.
"Forward, the Dodger Blue!
Beat up the Gints!" we cried.
That was in April in
Chavez Ravine.

May then came, June then came,
Onward the summer waned;
Ninety-one losses hurt
Dodgers fans' spleens.
"Change is tough," came the cry,
"In oh-eight, we will fly!
"Patience for good times nigh!
"Stick with the team!"

Fired in back of him,
Fired in front of him,
Fired, he left us in
Chavez Ravine.
"Change is hard" – ne'er more true
These days for Dodger Blue.
What will Colletti do?
Our pain is keen.

Change is hard – this we know –
Why did he have to go
Sans a fair chance to show
Chavez Ravine?
[i]This[/i] theory's harsh and vile –
Chicken-guts, liver, bile –
When they win, [i]then[/i] I'll smile.
Till then, no green.

The one constant through all the years has been baseball. America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers. It has been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt and erased again. But baseball has marked the time. This field, this game: it's a part of our past. It reminds of us of all that once was good and it could be again. Oh yeah, and Scott Boras is like chicken bile and that odor escaping? Shea Stadium.

?

I got nothin'. Happy Thanksgiving, y'all!

The White Sox's success this past season is a parallel to Ignatow's poem, "No Theory". The poem's speaker scoffs at intellectualizing primal senses, such as the sight of "wriggling entrails" or the smell of "odor escaping". The speaker seems to be saying that simply doing the damn job and not thinking too much about it gets it done just as well as contemplating each and every detail. In much the same way, Ken Williams and the White Sox organization did not seem to have put much complex analysis into their roster construction, but went off simplified information to make decisions, and got the job done. Of course, having a theory about gutting chickens and simply charging into the job aren't mutually exclusive; one can both gut the chicken with enthusiasm and confront the blood and guts while having solid theory and contemplation backing up his decisions as to how to do it, just as a general manager can be the one out on the field chalking lines and talking with hitters around the cage AND have solid statistical theory informing his or her decisions.

I'm giving this one to deadteddy8.

The board is yours...