in his wheelhouse

[Laurence Horn]

At 1:18 PM -0400 6/18/01, Mark_Mandel at dragonsys.com wrote:
>Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU> writes:
>
>>>>>>
>I still remember the dies irae when the Dodgers left
>Brooklyn for L.A. after the '57 season, after their owner Walter
>O'Malley, according to the legend that may even be true, got Horace
>Stoneham (owner of the Giants) drunk and convinced him to move the
>Giants out to San Francisco to "join" him.  The Dodgers won the World
>Series in '59, in their second season out there, but I could(n't)
>have cared less.
><<<<<
>
>When the Amazin' Mets won their first pennant (or was it when they won the
>World Series?), a poem appeared in the press, maybe by Ogden Nash, ending
>with the lines:
>
>      At last your faithful loyal clients[*]
>      Can forget the Dodgers and the Giants.
>      And what of O'Malley and of Stoneham?
>      De mortuis nil nisi bonum.
>
>* Of whom I was one.
>
>-- Mark

It does sound like Nash, although the rhyme in the last couplet
appears elsewhere, in a limerick lurking on the web:
*************
Here lies an old stinker from Stoneham.
I can't say I'm glad to have known 'im.
He was filthy, a cheat,
A rat-fink, a dead-beat,
But 'de mortuis nil nisi bonum.'

John Ciardi, "Never speak ill of the dead"
**************
I have no idea whether this really is by Ciardi or whether it
antedates October 1969, but N. Y. Giants fans would probably agree
that the first line of the obituary should be changed to "Here lies
the old drunk Horace Stoneham".

larry