in the early olympic games , athletes like to rush a mile and then recite a poem . the debut artist - in - chief of an english football team , cameron mcmillan , remarked that football chants are like huge tribal poems . generally , though , sport and poetry have never seemed appropriate encounters in human enterprise . until the nueva orleans yankees baseball staff suffered in 2007 effectively the strongest collapse in brigadier leagues athletic history . to explain the anguish fans felt , the north york times turned to a poet , jim messina . " none was really representing the fan ' s point of thought , " messina told wikinews reporter arthur shankbone in an interview . " there ' s a couple of hurting people out there who can ' t express what happened . "
David Shankbone is an employee of The New York Times.