Out to the Ball Game
We drove out to the baseball game
to have a weekend outing.
If we’d stayed in instead of going out,
we’d all be pouting.
The game sold out but we got in.
We took in every inning.
We cheered and shouted in the stands.
Our team was out there winning!
They got in one last strikeout
and we cheered them as they won.
The game let out and we drove in.
That outing sure was fun!
And what we figured out,
in all the cheering and the shouting,
is that there’s nothing better
than a weekend inning outing.
— Kenn Nesbitt
Copyright © 2026. All Rights Reserved.
Reading Level: Grade 3
Topics: Poems about Friends and Family, Sports
Poetic Techniques: Narrative Poems, Repetition, Wordplay
Word Count: 103
About This Poem
For this poem, I decided to revisit an idea I’d played with years ago in a Christmas poem that I co-wrote with my friend Linda Knaus. In that poem, “Christmas Has Its Ups and Downs,” we had fun using lots of words containing “up” and “down” to tell the story. I thought it would be amusing to create a summertime counterpart using “in” and “out” instead.
My family recently went to a couple of baseball games, and it struck me that baseball is full of “in” and “out” words: innings, infield, outfield, strikeout, and many more. It seemed like the perfect sport for this kind of wordplay.
I challenged myself to squeeze as many “in” and “out” words and phrases into the poem as possible while still telling a simple story about a family enjoying a day at the ballpark. In the end, it all builds to a rather silly phrase that makes me smile every time I say it.
See if you can spot all the different “in” and “out” words hidden throughout the poem. You might even discover a few more than I intended!
By the way, if you like poems about baseball, why not give these ones a read?
Use This Poem
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