Base-Ball Ballads/The Annual Return

by Grantland Rice

 

THE ANNUAL RETURN.

One by one they're drifting back—
Hank McGee to Hackensack;
Pat Maguire, the world-famed "spitter;"
Mike the Bite, "three-hundred" hitter;
Jim and Ed and Bill and Jack.
One by one they're drifting back,
With their curves, their keen intrigue,
To the swift Grass Cutter's League.

One by one they leave and go
Back again to Kokomo,
Kankakee and Rural Dell
Where they cast a mystic spell
On the "scouts" who touted them,
Each a "human diadem,"
In a serried line return
With their "curves and speed to burn."

One by one they fade away
To the fragrant, uncut hay.
"Second Wagners," "second Cobbs"
Back upon their old-time jobs
In the Fried Ham Circuit where
They were stars, with some to spare;
Were they played with famed eclat*
In the field and at the bat.

One by one they file back home
To the sweet scent of the loam;
Yet but one brief month ago
They were "making Walsh look slow"—
Each, the phenom of the age,
Flashed upon the sporting age
As the "greatest of them all"
When it came to playing ball.

Pounding on the beaten track—
Hank McGee to Hackensack,
Pat Maguire to Kankakee,
Mike to "Sunny Tennessee"—
In a serried line return,
With their "curves and speed to burn,"
Batting eyes and keen intrigue,
To the swift Grass Cutter's League.