In time for the Christmas season is a good gift idea for the lover of a unique literary device, likely only available, by the way, because of the Texas Rangers’ unfortunate, season-long standing as cellar dwellers.
Considering how popular Rangers play-by-play man Eric Nadel’s eighth-inning limerick was received on social media this summer, it should come as no surprise that his compilation titled Lim-Eric is receiving widespread applause.
Even noted literary critic Ron Washington, best known as a baseball man, offered high praise.
“I’m more of a sonnet man myself, but these are very good!”
That’s what you call the seal of approval from a detached observer.
That also a line in line with the spirit of the limerick, made popular in the 19th century by English poet Edward Lear, who mastered the art of what is called literary nonsense.
The mark of a limerick is humor and nonsensical verse written in five lines. The first, second and fifth lines are longer and rhyme together. The third and fourth lines are shorter and also rhyme together.
In the book are 175 limericks, most of them written by Nadel for the Rangers’ radio broadcast feature, the Eighth-Inning Limerick, which he read and posted on Twittter during each game. Others he crafted after the season for the book and include other topics, such as his favorite places on the road, his favorite musical artists and broadcasting peers, such as Brad Sham and Chuck Cooperstein and Emily Jones.
The final chapter is a collection of contributions from others, some of them listeners.
Inspired by Rangers right-hander Bartolo Colon’s chase of Dennis Martinez for career wins for a pitcher from Latin America, Nadel waxed:
Colon faced the Mariners ace,
Resuming his historic chase.
Despite some low velo,
Bart sure stayed “tranquilo,”
And now he’s the one in first place.
Complementing the text throughout are the brilliant illustrations from the obviously talented Dallas artist Arthur James, who makes these rhyming verses come to life.
The book is Nadel’s fourth as an author, following The Man Who Stole First Base, Texas Rangers: The Authorized History, and The Night Wilt Scored 100: Tales from Basketball’s Past.
“I’m so proud of the book,” said Nadel, who self-published it through Principito Publishing, the legal structure he created and named for his dog. “I just love it. It’s so gorgeous. The reviews have been beyond positive.”
Opportunities to buy the book and have it signed by Nadel are upcoming.
On Wednesday, he will be at a concert book release and signing at the Kessler Theatre in Dallas with musical artists Pedigo’s Magic Pilsner, Whitney Rose and Joshua Ray Walker. On Dec. 14, Nadel will be at the Frisco RoughRiders Winter Wonderland from 5-9 p.m. at the Dr Pepper Ballpark. From 1-4 p.m. on Dec. 15, shoppers can find Nadel at Legal Draft in Arlington.
Books can also be purchased through Amazon.com. If you want them personalized, Nadel said he would make arrangements with readers through social media.
Portions of the proceeds of each book purchased will be donated to the Texas Rangers Baseball Foundation.
I got to the park, and asked “What’s new?”
The answer was Don Wakamatsu.
The interim skipper
Is usually chipper.
I just hope he knows what not to do.
Nadel’s beginning in limericks was as an eighth-grader in an English class in Brooklyn, N.Y. The teacher instructed using the limericks of Lear.
“I was really good at writing them right away. I don’t know why. I just had a knack for it,” Nadel said. “But what are you going to do with that? I didn’t write limericks for a long time.”
In fact, he hasn’t written any in 40 years, since his days as a minor-league hockey broadcaster for the Dallas Blackhawks in the late 1970s.
Until this year.
By late April, it was fairly clear the Rangers, and their fans, were in for a long summer. Nadel and broadcast partner Matt Hicks began talking about ways to keep the audience in place and entertained for nine innings. Or at least a reason to tune back in if they left.
The advertisers prefer having as many in the audience as possible. Strange how that works.
“Basically, a desperate attempt to hold the audience if things went really bad,” Nadel said. “Mark Holtz used to call it ‘diversionary tactics.’ We needed a diversionary tactic.”
Crisis is the mother of all invention, after all.
The idea was an accident of chance.
For the month of May, the Rangers had designed a promotional called “Pay the Day.” Some tickets could be purchased for as low as the day. Tickets on May 5, for example, could be purchased for $5.
The copy provided for Nadel and Hicks to be read during the game broadcast included “pay the day because we’re playing in May.”
“I read it on the air, and I said to Matt, ‘if they’re going to give us rhymes maybe they should write us a limerick.’”
Hicks said he didn’t think that was going to happen, but perhaps Nadel should do it.
“So, I took the ad copy home and rewrote as a limerick. I read it the next day, we were playing the Red Sox, and the Rangers were losing in the late innings. Almost right after I read that limerick, Matt said, ‘he’s just been called up from Pawtucket,’ referring to one of the Red Sox players. And I said ‘that sounds like the first line of a limerick!’”
The creative juices moved, Nadel got his pencil working.
A young hitting star at Pawtucket,
Each time up would step into the bucket.
If he got this corrected,
He’d soon be selected
for Cooperstown, like Kirby Puckett.
The reaction on Twitter was positive. (A miracle for Twitter.) The Eighth-Inning Limerick was born, designed to hopefully keep the listener engaged.
There are no plans to continue the custom in 2019, Nadel said, though he’s not ruling it out. It won’t be a unilateral decision. He has bosses who have to approve.
It might depend on fan demand … and, of course, how the Rangers’ season goes.
It could be another long summer. Entertaining fans might demand he draw on the spirit of Edward Lear once again.
Wash says, “That’s the way baseball go,”
We won’t be in this year’s fall show.
One day we’ll be in it
And then when we win it,
I’ll make that last call nice and slow.
“If I did it again, I might go insane,” Nadel joked. “I wake up in the middle of the night sometimes with the makings of a limerick in my head. Or if somebody says something and if it happens to be nine syllables, I’m like ‘that’s the first line of a limerick!’”
