With apologies to Willie Wigglestick (the Bat of Avon had a Joe Morgan-esque timing tic), I present a dramatic interlude: the opening soliloquy from Act 1, Scene 1 of Richard Ill (original here).

SCENE I. Oakland. No Street.

Enter PITCHER, solus

PITCHER

Ow! It’s the shoulder of my discom-fort
Made injurious summer by this sum of torque;
And all the crowds that roar'd upon our house
In the deep bottom of division buried.
Draped with a shroud, mound with superstitious wraiths;
Our bruised arms hung up from abusements;
Our stern alarums changed to PR bleatings,
Our dreadful Marches to delightful pleasures.
Grim Richard, sore, hath broach'd his injured branch;
And now, instead of mound King Harden stands
To fright the souls of fearful adversaries,
I labor numbly in my trainer’s chamber
To the last vicious rasping of a lance.
But I, that am not shaped for sportive pitch,
Nor made to sport a numerous counting stat;
I, that am rudely amp'd, and want but be healthy
To start before a Blanton ambling blimp;
I, that am curtail'd of my rare profession,
Cheated of future by dissembling nature,
Deformed, unfinish'd, spent before my time,
Innings pitched changeups hurled, starts half made up,
And those so lamely and unfinishable
That fans bark at me as I halt by them;
Why, I, in this weak pitching time of Beane’s,
Have no delight to pass away the time,
Useless to spy my shadow in the ’pen
And press chance on mine own deformity:
And therefore, since I cannot prove a starter,
To entertain thee, farewell, broken A’s,
I am determined to earn my millions
And hate the rehab strictures of these A’s.
Plots have they laid, deductions dangerous,
By AN prophecies, libels and screams,
To set my trainer, Clarence, and the Beane
In deadly hate the one against the other:
And if Beane ignored words as true and just
That I am fragile, halt and injurious,
This day should Clarence coolly be pink-slip’d,
About a prophecy, which says that '3'
Of Oakland’s ace the injuries shall be.
Grind, knot, down to my should’: ’ere
Clarence comes.