Alexa, tell me a baseball joke

If you happen to have an Amazon device that has the AI app Alexa on it, then you know that you can ask Alexa all kinds of questions, from the latest news and the weather forecast to random facts and even corny jokes. It turns out, Alexa also features a collection of baseball jokes. Just say, “Alexa, tell me a baseball joke.” Many are quite cheesy, as expected, but Alexa also manages to throw some zingers, too.

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Question: Why did the chicken cross the road?
Answer: He got traded from the Yankees to the Mets.

Q: What do you call a baseball player who chews sunflower seeds?
A: The designated spitter.

Q: What do baseball fans in Washington DC do for fun?
A: They go to Baltimore Orioles games.

Q: What do baseball players say when they hit the showers?
A: Lather up!

A recent study claims watching sports can improve your health. Unless you are a fan of the Houston Astros.

Q: What’s the best way to hold a bat?
A: By its wings. But you really shouldn’t hold a bat.

Q: Which baseball player has the shortest commute?
A: The catcher. He only works from home.

Q: What do you call a haunted baseball park?
A: Field of Screams.

Q: Why did the baseball player put a poster of The Simpsons on his front door?
A: Because he wanted to knock a Homer.

Q: What did the softball say to the baseball?
A: Do you even lift, bruh?

“Spring Training,” by Philip Raisor

There’s a lot of great imagery in this poem. It’s also quite nostalgic, full of memories expressed by the narrator. This piece was published in Philip Raisor’s poetry collection, Headhunting and Other Sports Poems.

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I carry my spikes and step on the field an hour
ahead of the others. Last day of March with April
offering tickets for the new season. I’m full of sun
on wet grass, in love with blistered benches.

A sparrow sits on the backstop, watching, ready
to dart if I catch its eye. I drop my bag on home plate
and swirl my foot in the dust the way my cousin does
with his fingers on the skin of a drum head. Next year

he’ll be released with the others who spent mornings
breaking windows and trashing vacation homes
like drunks in the right field bleachers. Here, I’m alone
with a sparrow and the smell of a baseball morning

settling around me like a comforter. I start trotting
to first base, the ankles loosening, then the knees,
as the dust begins to lift into the breaking light.
Around second and third I stretch my arms

in a rotary motion ready to fly. A hand waves back
from a passing car, someone who knows me
or remembers rising one morning when the game
of who you are is played out in your mind,

and around you a stadium full of fans begs you
to do what you usually do in the clutch. The bat I pull
from the bag for the first time is my father’s
Louisville Slugger, thirty-three inches, wood barrel.

I thought enough time had passed, the attic dust
hard in the grooves. I stroke it slowly like a weapon
you love to touch but would never use. He hit .304
at Omaha the season he was drafted, all-star

rookie-of-the-year. He said we’d join him soon.
Then that other draft. He would have been here.
I swear he would. The silence feels oppressive now.
I dig for a scuffed ball and throw it up, shoulder high,

but let it fall. A natural hitter, my father said, holding
my hands. I grip the tar-stained handle. Tears blur
the wall that’s so far away it looks warped. I aim
for marrow deep inside, April hungry for the kill.

This day in baseball: The New York Highlanders join the American League

At a conference held on March 12, 1903, Ban Johnson requested that an American League team be placed in New York to play alongside the National League’s Giants. 15 of the 16 major league owners agreed to the request to move the Baltimore team to the Big Apple, with the one dissenting vote coming from Giants owner John T. Brush. The Orioles’ new owners, Frank J. Farrell and William S. Devery, moved the team to New York that year, where they became known as the New York Highlanders.

Hilltop park 1903
Hilltop Park, 1903, home of the Highlanders (Wikipedia)

Infographic: Highest-Priced Hot Dogs in MLB

I’ve posted infographics here about hot dogs previously: here and here, for example. The one from Statista below is probably the most up-to-date that I’ve managed to come across, depicting the teams with the highest-priced ballpark dogs as of 2019, juxtaposed with some of the cheapest hot dog prices.

The thought of dropping $7 on a hot dog is pretty mind-blowing to me. At that point, is seems like it’d be worth the extra hassle to just cook a couple dogs at home and find a way to smuggle them in.

MLB Highest Priced Hot Dogs - statista

“Along Came Ruth,” by Ford Frick

This poem by Ford Frick ends with the line, “Nothing’s simpler than that!”, which is quite fitting, as this piece is pretty straightforward. This was published in Ford Frick’s memoir, Games, Asterisks, and People: Memoirs of a lucky fan.

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You step up to the platter
And you gaze with flaming hate
At the poor benighted pitcher
As you dig in at the plate.
You watch him cut his fast ball loose,
Then swing your trusty bat
And you park one in the bleachers-
Nothing’s simpler than that!

Ford_Frick_at_1937_All-Star_Game - Library of Congress
Ford Frick at the 1937 All-Star Game (Library of Congress)