RUTHLESS:

Armed with that knowledge, and one lyrical line poached from the box score, [New York Daily Mail columnist Franklin Pierce] Adams sat down and typed:

 These are the saddest of possible words:

"Tinker to Evers to Chance."

 Trio of bear cubs and fleeter than birds,

 Tinker and Evers and Chance.

 Ruthlessly pricking our gonfalon bubble,

 Making a Giant hit into a double -

 Words that are heavy with nothing but trouble:

 "Tinker to Evers to Chance."

And that was it. Eight lines of throwaway verse, reprinted in newspapers from coast to coast and eventually re-titled "Baseball's Sad Lexicon," that would leave generations of readers scratching their heads -- "gonfalon bubble?" -- or arguing that Adams had unwittingly elevated his subjects -- the Cubs' double-play combination of shortstop Joe Tinker, second baseman Johnny Evers, and first baseman Frank Chance -- to an iconic status unmerited by their play.

Or not.

A quick trip to the dictionary solves the first mystery. A gonfalon, Webster informs us, is a banner or flag hung from a crosspiece instead of an upright staff, usually ending in pointed streamers, and common to the medieval republics of Italy. Hence, a literate jab at New York baseball fans afflicted with mid-summer "pennant fever." David Rapp unfurls the rest in Tinker to Evers to Chance.

Tweet   @brothersjudd