Casey at the Bat collection

Collection

Identifier: BA MSS 208

Staff Only

Scope and Contents

A collection relating to the poem "Casey at the Bat" dated between 1904 and 2000. This poem was published in a variety of formats including newspapers, brochures, and magazines, which are represented in this collection. There are a few booklets with the poem and one printed for Christmas of 1954. An item of interest is a 1904 cartoon of the poem printed in the Evening Mail.

Dates

1904-2000

Conditions Governing Access

Materials are open without restrictions but viewing materials does require an appointment. Please contact the Giamatti Research Center, research@baseballhall.org, 607-547-0330.

Conditions Governing Use

The National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum provides use copies of materials to facilitate private study, scholarship, and research. The Museum welcomes you to use materials in our collections that are in the public domain and to make fair use of copyrighted materials as defined by copyright law and with proper citation. Permission to publish materials must be obtained from: Giamatti Research Center, National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum, 25 Main St., Cooperstown, NY 13326 Phone: 607.547.0330 E-mail: research@baseballhall.org

Biographical / Historical

“Casey at the Bat” is a baseball poem written in 1888 by Ernest Thayer. It was first published in The San Francisco Examiner on June 3, 1888. DeWolf Hopper gave the poem's first stage recitation on August 14, 1888, at New York's Wallack Theatre as part of the comic opera Prinz Methusalem in the presence of the Chicago White Stockings and the New York Giants. Although a star of the musical stage, he was best known for performing the popular baseball poem.

The residents of Stockton, California, which was known for a time as Mudville prior to incorporation in 1850, also lay claim to being the inspiration for the poem. In 1887, Thayer covered baseball for The San Francisco Examiner owned by his Harvard classmate William Randolph Hearst and is said to have covered the local California League team, the Stockton Ports. For the 1902 season, after the poem became popular, Stockton's team was renamed the Mudville Nine. The team reverted to the Mudville Nine moniker for the 2000 and 2001 seasons.