Presenting ‘Cascade at the Bat’: A Bad Intel CPU Poem

By Joel Hruska

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I wrote this poem — “poem” — around the time Intel launched Cascade Lake back in 2019. I held off publishing back then because I didn’t want to leave people thinking we’d reviewed a CPU in truly bad poetry instead of my typical second-rate prose. I also didn’t want it to come off as mean-spirited. I set it aside and forgot I wrote it, only to rediscover it again this week.

“Cascade at the Bat” is a parody of “Casey at the Bat: A Ballad of the Republic, Sung in the Year 1888.” The primary difference between “Cascade” and “ Casey” is that the latter is a beloved and well-known piece of comedic poetry, while the former is… unlikely to achieve this worthy station. Some of the feedback I received when I shared my magnum dopus with friends is reprinted verbatim below:

Words From Readers Describing “Cascade at the Bat”

“A gem worthy of McGonagall.” (This is the antipode of a compliment).

“It’s definitely a thing you spent time making. We have but a finite time on this planet, and this is how you chose to spend some of yours. I respect that, even if I don’t understand it.”

“Proof that anyone can write poetry. Anyone. Oh God, anyone.”

“You are one of my very favourite people for so many reasons. This both is and is not one of them. 10/10 for the way your mind works; 1/10 poetry.”

Without further ado, I present:

Cascade At the Bat

The outlook wasn’t brilliant for the Intel chip that day
The score stood 32–18, with no threads left to play
With core counts insufficient and clock speed all but gone,
No one knew what to expect when Cascade stepped on the lawn.

It wasn’t very long ago that Intel ruled the game
Conroe, Penryn, and Westmere all caused Sunnyvale great pain
Then came Sandy, Ivy, Haswell — great hitters, one and all
Collectively they owned the field
And fed AMD the ball.