It’s a little know fact of history, but environmentalists almost nipped the game of baseball in the bud. The same people who today keep us from drilling for oil were then trying to keep us from drilling a three oh fastball into the corner. But Abner Doubleday was made of sterner stuff. He was a General in the Union Army, and if his boys wanted to play ball no copperhead environmentalist was going to prevent them from doing so. In a garage sale, Verse-afire has come upon a letter written by one Hiram Lambkin, president of the Environmental Society of Cooperstown, New York. The letter read as follows.

 

I tell you, Abner, this won’t do

Your game will harm a thing or two

Our forests are denuded now

So wooden bats we can’t allow

Removing grass for infields will

Reduce the food for horses till

They become scarce and that’s a fact

So playing ball’s a harmful act

The ball you say is horsehide too

So you can see with horses few

That making balls with scarce resource

Will lead to taking hides by force

Your uniforms are made of wool

And as we know the threads all pull

Resulting in more sheep to shear

And that will lead to what I fear

Is ecologically, alas

A drain upon our dwindling grass

Our corn is finite too as well

So all the popcorn you will sell

And peanuts yes and crackerjack

Will mean that all these things we’ll lack

With people singing Take Me Out

To The Ballgame with a shout

The strain on trolleys will be great

And then we’re in a sorry state

A girl’s game, Rounders, that’s the truth

Your game will lead to boys named Ruth

And if your game becomes a hit

We’ll soon have Mantle, Mays and Schmidt

No Abner this will never do

For all our sakes we order you

To listen to your betters, us

Your players will all spit and cuss

And Goddess Gaia will be pleased

When strain upon her Earth is eased

The Earth is finite in its yields

So we forbid these baseball fields

 

And as we know, the environmentalists were right. The horses are gone, the corner lots are filled with the ping of aluminum bats, woolen uniforms are no more, and nobody sings Take Me Out To The Ballgame anymore, except Harry Carey in the seventh inning stretch at Wrigley. Everybody else is at home watching on television,drinking beer and wondering what the heck happened to the Phillies.