Line-Up for Yesterday

"Line-Up for Yesterday: An ABC of Baseball Immortals" is a poem written by Ogden Nash for the January 1949 issue of SPORT Magazine. In the poem, Nash dedicates each letter of the alphabet to a legendary Major League Baseball player. The poem pays tribute to 24 players altogether, plus one winking reference to himself (under "I") as a fan of the game, and concludes with a final stanza in homage to the players collectively.

Baseball players referred to in the poem

Grover Cleveland Alexander
Roger Bresnahan
Ty Cobb
Dizzy Dean
Johnny Evers
Jimmie Foxx
Frankie Frisch
Lou Gehrig
Rogers Hornsby
Carl Hubbell
Walter Johnson
Willie Keeler
Nap Lajoie
Christy Mathewson
Bobo Newsom
Mel Ott
Eddie Plank
Connie Mack
Babe Ruth
Tris Speaker
Bill Terry
Dazzy Vance
Honus Wagner
Cy Young

Statistics

Eighteen of the players were also in the Hall of Fame at the time, and all but one (Bobo Newsom) would eventually be inducted.
Eight players—Cobb, Gehrig, Hornsby, Johnson, Mathewson, Ruth, Wagner, and Young—would be elected to the All Century Team in 1999.