Ernest Lawrence Thayer, a graduate of Harvard’s class of 1885, had wandered about for several years before landing in California. He wrote a weekly humor piece for the San Francisco Sunday Examiner during 1887 and 1888, and his final piece for the Examiner, published 3-Jun-1888, was apparently inspired by a game he saw at Stockton that spring.
The work languished for a few months, until vaudevillian DeWolf Hopper made it a part of his act and performed it in New York Tuesday 14-Aug-1888, with members of the New York Giants and visiting Chicago White Stockings (later the Cubs) in attendance. Hopper claimed to have performed the work another ten thousand times, releasing a recorded version in 1906 that hit No. 3 on the Billboard chart.
The author, whose work ran anonymously in the Examiner, was not overly proud of his work, and nearly refused to take credit for it even though it had become the best-known literary work dealing with baseball. Mathematician and Scientific American columnist Martin Gardner devoted an entire volume, The Annotated Casey at the Bat, to the poem and its variations and derivative works.
In the ultimate tribute to Casey, the baseball team in Stockton, known as the Ports for many years owing to the city’s status as an inland port, renamed itself the Mudville Nine in 2000, and their new park was proposed to be named Mudville Stadium. (The team reverted to the Ports name with an ownership change in 2002, but three years later moved to Banner Island, where Stockton baseball was being played when Thayer was in the neighborhood.)
A straggling few got up to go in deep despair. The rest
Clung to that hope which springs eternal in the human breast;
They thought, “If only Casey could but get a whack at that:
We’d put up even money now, with Casey at the bat.”
But Flynn preceded Casey, as did also Jimmy Blake,
And the former was a lulu and the latter was a cake.
So upon that stricken multitude grim melancholy sat,
For there seemed but little chance of Casey’s getting to the bat.
But Flynn let drive a single, to the wonderment of all,
And Blake, the much despis-ed, tore the cover off the ball.
And when the dust had cleared, and they saw what had occurred,
There was Jimmy safe at second and Flynn a-hugging third.
Then from five thousand tongues and more there rose a lusty yell;
It rumbled in the valley and rattled in the dell;
It pounded on the mountain and recoiled upon the flat;
For Casey, mighty Casey, was advancing to the bat.
There was ease in Casey’s manner as he stepped into his place;
There was pride in Casey’s bearing and a smile lit Casey’s face.
And when, responding to the cheers, he lightly doffed his hat,
No stranger in the crowd could doubt ’twas Casey at the bat.
Ten thousand eyes were on him as he rubbed his hands with dirt;
Five thousand tongues applauded when he wiped them on his shirt.
Then while the writhing pitcher ground the ball into his hip,
Defiance gleamed in Casey’s eye, a sneer curled Casey’s lip.
And now the leather-covered sphere came hurtling through the air,
And Casey stood a-watching it in haughty grandeur there.
Close by the sturdy batsman the ball unheeded sped:
“That ain’t my style,” said Casey. “Strike one!” the umpire said.
From the benches, black with people, there went up a muffled roar,
Like the beating of the storm waves on a stern and distant shore.
“Kill him! Kill the umpire!” shouted someone on the stand;
And it’s likely they’d have killed him had not Casey raised his hand.
With a smile of Christian charity great Casey’s visage shone.
He stilled the rising tumult; he bade the game go on.
He signaled to the pitcher, and once more the spheroid flew;
But Casey still ignored it, and the umpire said, “Strike two!”
“Fraud!” cried the maddened thousands, and echo answered fraud;
But one scornful look from Casey and the audience was awed.
They saw his face grow stern and cold, they saw his muscles strain,
And they knew that Casey wouldn’t let that ball go by again.
The sneer has fled from Casey’s lip, his teeth are clenched in hate;
He pounds with cruel violence his bat upon the plate.
And now the pitcher holds the ball, and now he lets it go,
And now the air is shattered by the force of Casey’s blow.
Oh, somewhere in this favored land the sun is shining bright,
The band is playing somewhere, and somewhere hearts are light,
And somewhere men are happy, and somewhere children shout;
But there is no joy in Mudville: mighty Casey has struck out.