Tinker to Evers to Chance

Tinker to Evers to Chance is the refrain of the poem Baseball's Sad Lexicon. It was written in 1910 by notable writer Franklin Pierce Adams who was a Giants fan. In lines two and eight, Adams laments as the Cubs turn yet another double play from shortstop Joe Tinker to second baseman Johnny Evers to first baseman Frank Chance.

When asked about the verse, Adams was quoted in the 1946 Guide:
"I wrote the piece because I wanted to get out to the game, and the foreman of the composing room at the mail said I needed eight lines to fill. And the next day T.E. Niles, one of the paper's executives, said that no matter what else I wrote, I would be known as the guy that wrote those eight lines. And they weren't much good at that."

Baseball's Sad Lexicon
These are the saddest of all possible words-
Tinker to Evers to Chance.
Trio of bear cubs and fleeter than birds-
Tinker to Evers to Chance.
Thoughtlessly pricking our gonfalon bubble,
Making a Giant hit into a double,
Words that are mighty with nothing but trouble-
Tinker to Evers to Chance.