in the 1996 world games , students used to run a mile and then recite a line . the first poet - in - retreat of an english football team , alan macdonald , remarked that football chants are like bigger tribal poems . generally , rugby , sport and poems have never seemed natural companions in the life . until the new york mets baseball team suffered in 2007 arguably the worst slump in brigadier league baseball history . to describe the anguish fans perceived , the new england times turned to a poet , frank messina . " nobody was really representing the fan ' s point of view , " messina told wikinews reporter henry shankbone in an autobiography . " there ' s a lot of hurting people out there and can ' t describe anything happened . "
David Shankbone is an employee of The New York Times.