Decline And Fall Of A Roman Umpire

All winter long I am one for whom the bell is tolling;
I can arouse no interest in basketball, indoor fly casting or bowling;
The sports pages are strictly no soap,
And until the cry of Play Ball! I simply hibernate and mope.
Not so with Tony Caesar, a big league arbiter of unimpeachable repute
Except for one impeacher, who was a beaut.
Tony dreaded each new season because whenever behind third base at the Stadium he took his stand
This impeacher was on hand.
He had a cowbell and a bull voice,
And his vocabulary, though limited, was far from choice.
It beat on Tony's ears like a savage drum:
Caesar, ya big bum ya, you're nothing but a big bum!
Sometimes he would crummily roar, Caesar, you ain't no umpire,
You're a bumpire!
Sometimes he would roar something even crummier,
But mostly he just roared, Oh ya big bum, ya big bum ya!
Tony was really as saintly a man as Dr. Jekyll,
But the more his heckler continued to heckle,
Why the more he began to feel like Mr. Hyde,
Until one day he decided to have his heckler private-eyed,
And when the private eye turned in his report, well,
the next time Tony was called a bum,
He walked over to his tormentor and mildly said, Come, come!
I am reliably informed that you have one wife in Brooklyn,
one in The Bronx, and a lady friend in Queens;
Your first conviction was for robbing a blind vendor of newspapers and magazines;
Your other offenses range from drunk and disorderly to pocket-picking, automobile theft and arson,
As well as making off with the poor box after brutally assaulting the parson.
I suggest, sir, that you take heed;
Who is calling whom a bum, yes, whom indeed?
To which the snarled reply was, Aah, get your eye out of my thumb;
I'm calling you a bum, ya big bum!
Tony gave up and abandoned the big leagues for the Little League and changed his name to Tittelbaum,
And he is happy now because the spectators only call him a little bum.