Steve Trachsel, 2007 Upper Deck #560

Friends, Baltimorons, Birdlanders, lend me your ears:

I come to bury Trachsel, not to praise him.

The evil that men do lives after them;

The good is oft interred with their bones;

So let it be with Trachsel. The noble Trembley

Hath told you Trachsel was an innings eater:

If it were so, it was a grievous fault,

And grievously hath Trachsel answered it.

Here, under leave of Trembley and the rest --

For Trembley is an honorable man;

So are they all, all honorable men --

Come I to speak in Trachsel’s funeral.

He was my friend, faithful and just to me:

But Trembley says he was innings eater;

And Trembley is an honorable man.

He hath brought many earned runs home to the enemy,

Whose ransoms did the box scores fill:

Did this in Trachsel seem innings eater?

When that the O's fans had cried, Trachsel hath wept.

Innings eaters should be made of sterner stuff:

Yet Trembley says he was an innings eater;

And Trembley is an honorable man.

You all did see that in the Rogers Centre

I thrice presented him a game to finish,

Which he did thrice refuse: was this innings eating?

Yet Trembley says he was an innings eater;

And, sure, he is an honorable man.

I speak not to disprove what Trembley spoke,

But here I am to speak what I do know.

You all did love him once, not without cause:

What cause withholds you then to mourn for him?

O judgment! Thou art fled to brutish beasts,

And men have lost their reason! Bear with me;

My heart is on the waiver wire there with Trachsel,

And I must pause till it come back to me.

Lovingly borrowed from another source