One hundred and fifteen years ago, Ernest L. Thayer wrote a poem in the San Francisco Examiner about the newfangled game of baseball. Although the poem still makes sense today, the atmosphere of the game has changed a bit.

Players get paid lots of money to play today. Taking a family to a pro game is detrimental to your wallet. Even baseball cards have evolved into big business.

But this month, the magic of the sport precariously holding onto the title of “America’s pastime” returned, if only in the hopes that two perennial (and cursed) losers might come together for the unimaginable.

The following comes with apologies to Thayer and his immortal “Casey at the Bat.”

The outlook was almost brilliant for the Wrigleyville nine that day;

The score stood three to nothing and the Cubs were five outs away.

But then the baseball gods realized, as would say the news from AP —

Those were the Cubs that were playing, and thus, a win could not be.

Castillo hit it deep to left, but it had a leftward slant;

Alou chased after it, but fate said “Catch it? No, he can’t.”

“The Mitt Hits The Fan” was the Tribune’s big headline the next day

Steve Bartman would live in infamy, his hand into the fray.

Games shouldn’t turn on plays like that, but rattled the players seemed;

A walk, and then a horrendous E-6; was it the billy goat that intervened?

An eight-run eighth, then Game 7. The Cubs were meant to be

The sixth team to blow a 3-1 lead in postseason history.

What about Boston? Here again, up by three with five outs to go;

But Grady Little’s choice doomed them,

that or the Curse of the Bambino.

Killer B’s wreak havoc on the Red Sox stormy past:

Babe, Bucky Dent and Bill Buckner, and Aaron Boone won’t be the last.

Boone’s solo home run in 11 sent the Yankees on their way;

26 Series wins they have, a new one may come any day.

They aren’t supposed to be real, but if I had to take a guess

(And take a cue from Al Michaels,) “Do I believe in curses? Yes!”

To give the Marlins credit, it takes talent to come back late

When those cheering against you are from 49 and a half of the states.

The Cubs arose just months before Colorado’s statehood came to light;

1985 is the first date listed on Florida’s baseball site.

Everyone wanted Cubs-BoSox: World Series Apocalypse Now;

but after the Babe, and a goat, and a fan reviled like O’Leary’s cow,

It’s the team no one here cares for versus the best team money can buy;

Ratings went right down the toilet, Fox executives broke down and cried.

If anything I am a Cubs fan

— went to Wrigley once, in ’92 —

But fervent I’m not, to live and die for them is not what I do.

I take a sports quasi-blackout from March until the State Fair;

Pro baseball amuses me not — but this October made me care.

This is the hundredth World Series — not! It’s really only the year

100 past Pilgrims and Pirates, with two absent betwixt there and here:

1904 didn’t have one, and for ’94 I don’t really need

To remind you the Series was canceled outright due to nothing but unrestrained greed.

No salary cap is in baseball, and they think a luxury tax

Is going to pacify critics, or at the very least, make them relax.

Yankees rule the postseasons too often, outside of New York we just bail;

The last time Florida won, its next step was to hold a big fire sale.

“Fraud!” should cry the thousands, but that statement isn’t said;

A limit hasn’t hurt other sports, but Bud Selig et al. shake their heads.

In the ’50s it was different, Yankees then are legends today;

But now it’s spend and spend alike: “We have the money. Wanna play?”

Attention to baseball is gone from my head; football again reigns supreme.

(Although at 2 and 5, the Cyclones aren’t a stellar team.)

There might be some plays of interest, to you I will give that;

But the Cubs-Sox final is gone, and so my attention just falls flat.

Oh, somewhere in a parallel world the ivy still hangs proud;

A Fenway-Wrigley Series with fans out cheering long and loud.

But here, some choices stopped that, and/or curses played their part;

And I’m back to not paying attention, though baseball temporarily held my heart.