"Casey at the Bat", subtitled "A Ballad of the Republic Sung in the Year 1888", is a baseball poem written in 1888 by Ernest Thayer. First published in the San Francisco Examiner on June 3, 1888, it was later popularized by DeWolf Hopper in many vaudeville performances.
In the poem, a baseball team from the fictional town of Mudville is losing by two runs with two outs in their last at bats, but they think they can win "if only" they could somehow get "mighty Casey" up to bat. Two weak hitters manage to get on base, and Casey comes to bat with the tying run in scoring position. However, the overconfident Casey strikes out, ending the game and sending the crowd home unhappy.
The poem is filled with references to baseball as it was in 1888, which in many ways is not far removed from today's version. The beloved Casey, Mudville's star player, is so confident in his abilities that he doesn't swing at the first two pitches, both strikes. As a work, the poem encapsulates much of the appeal of baseball, including the involvement of the crowd. It also has a fair amount of baseball jargon that can pose challenges for translators.
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 Prince Methusalem in the presence of the Chicago and New York baseball teams, the White Stockings and the Giants; August 14, 1888, was also Thayer's 25th birthday. The first recorded version of Casey at the Bat, as sung by Russell Hunting, hit the music charts in 1893. DeWolf Hopper's more famous version was not released until October 1906. There was also a 1927 movie Casey at the Bat starring Wallace Beery as Casey.