The Wreck of the Tampa Bay Rays?

When Alejandro Kirk doubled in two runs with two out in the bottom of the 6th on Thursday to extend the lead over the Yankees to 4-0 in their playoff clincher, I was inspired in the moment to quickly adapt a part of the first verse of Gordon Lightfoot’s indelible ballad The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald in tribute. Looking a little further, it struck me that even more of the ensuing verses was readily adaptable or somewhat applicable to Kirk.

The problem, of course, is the song is fundamentally about the tragedy of a great ship sinking in a storm with 29 lives lost. Not exactly the comparison to be conjured up for a promising prospect, especially given the Blue Jays’ history of catchers of the future floundering. With the then-likelihood and now-certain reality of facing their divisional nemesis in the playoffs, it was suggested that instead it could be the Wreck of the Tampa Bay Rays.

And so, I present The (Hopefully Impending) Wreck of the Tampa Bay Rays at the Hands of Alejandro Kirk:

Minor Leaguer’s Note: Click here to listen to a performance of the song by Bluebird Banter reader metalfoot.

The legend lives on from Rogers Centre on down
Of the backstop they called Alejandro
Captain Kirk, it is said, hammers fastballs dead red
When the games of September might be woe
With a load of fans twenty-six milligrams more
Than Tropicana stadium weighed empty
The good ship Blue Jay was bound to be prey
When the games of October came early

Young Kirk was the pride of the Mexican side
Coming up from the farm in Dunedin
As short ballplayers go, he was bigger than most
With quick hands, a keen eye though not seasoned
Concluding some terms with divisional firms
They left fully loaded for Rays-land
And later that week when “play ball” rang
Could it be the Trop’s ghosts they were feelin’?

Balls lost in the roof fell safely in fair ground
Routine pop-ups clanged right off the catwalk
And everyone knew, as El Capitan did too,
T’was the witch of the Trop come to shock
The throw came in late, offline from the plate
As the Tampa Bay runners came crossin’
When the late innings came it all seemed in vain
In the face of a cursed playing surface

When few outs remained, Captain Kirk came on deck sayin’
Fellas, it’s time for a rally
Seven pitches in, a ball hung over the plate, he said
Fellas, this one’s in the alley
Kevin Cash wired in so many runs comin’ in
His bullpen and bench in a deep daze
And later that night when the last out went outta sight
Came the wreck of the Tampa Bay Rays

Does any one know where the love of God goes
When Dolis turns the minutes to hours?
The statheads all say they shouldn’t have been in the fray
But Manfred put fifteen more teams alongside ‘em
They might have been lucky or they might have collapsed
They may have broke form in close losses
But all that remains is the faces and the names
Of the hitters and pitchers and the coaches

The offence rolls, Teoscar dings
In the confines of revamped Sahlen Field
Pearson’s fastball steams like a young man’s dreams
The change-ups and curves are for Hyun Jin
It happened below Lake Ontario
Just east of Lake Erie for 2020
And the fly balls go though the Mariners won’t know
When the year of corona’s remembered

Stay ahead of the boys in Detroit they prayed,
In the Triple-A players’ cathedral
The foghorn blared till it went twenty-eight times
For each man on the Jays’ playoff roster
The legend lives on from Rogers Centre on down
Of the backstop they called Alejandro
Tropicana, they said, always leaves the Jays dead
But the hosts at the Trop have a new foe

A performance from