The Ballad of Mean Gene LeGreene

I’ll tell you a story of Mean Gene LeGreene,
The meanest man to join our ping-pong team.
He was mean and vicious, though he lacked finesse
I’ve seen him win with unbelievable success.
Why I remember a time in old Spokane,
We were having just a friendly game;
When through the doors and into our midst,
Walked luscious Lou with a feminine twist.
“Now,” says she, “Don’t think it a boast,
But I’ve played the best from coast to coast;
And now I’ve just one more dream,
To whip the man, Mean Gene LeGreene!”

We cleared a space, ‘bout a half acre square,
To give room to this most unruly pair,
And ere they’d pinged, yet before they’d ponged,
There gathered around a massive throng;
To watch this match, that was recently hatched,
With the Ping-Pong Queen and Mean Gene LeGreene.
Now ‘twas up to Lou, who served first,
Yet ‘twas Mean Gene who uttered a curse.
I watched the ball as it bounced real high,
And I saw Gene’s thoughts in his eye,
Slam! Slam! Slam! Slam!
As his return missed the table and fell to the ground.

The room was hot; the temperature did rise,
Sweat poured down Gene’s face and into his eyes,
For the score was nine to one, the game half done,
And it was Gene who had the one.
He scoffed and scowled, coughed and growled,
And if he must he was ready to foul,
For through thick or through thin, he had to win,
To save us from disgrace in the end.
So he volleyed and slammed, hacked and crammed,
‘Til the score stood point nine for him,
With but a point to end the dream,
Of Luscious Lou, the Ping-Pong Queen.

Lou made her serve that jumped and skipped,
But Gene returned it like a whip.
Her recovery brought cheers from us all,
But Gene merely played it off the wall.
A back court slam that was made too rash,
Looked like so much garbage and trash,
For its speed was slow and its bounce high,
And Gene knew now it was do or die.
So he planted his feet and cocked his arm,
And prepared to lay waste to all her charm.
With a guttural cry of “Thank you, Mam,”
He laid on Lou his Hooker Hollow slam!

The ball leaped and shot the groove,
So fast and vicious was his move,
And nary a breath was breathed in that hall,
For all our eyes were on the ball.
And though the ball was not to blame,
In mid air it smoked and burst into flame,
As Mean Gene gagged and began to choke,
And fell dead on the table from a cerebral stroke.
And there before her very eyes,
Mean Gene had robbed her of the prize,
To be the only Ping-Pong Queen
To claim victory o’er Mean Gene LeGreene.

Now the story I’ve told is true, my friend,
About the game that caused his end.
That’s the saga about Mean Gene LeGreene,
And how he saved our Ping-Pong Team.