40 Fun Facts About Casey at the Bat

How does the mighty slugger's big moment end in the final line of Casey at the Bat?

He strikes out, swinging so hard at the last pitch that the poem says the air is shattered. Somewhere else, the narrator adds, the sun is shining and bands are playing.

What is the name of the fictional town whose ball club and its star batter feature in Casey at the Bat?

Mudville packs a crowd of 5,000 into its ballpark in the poem, all of them certain the game can be saved if one man gets a turn at the plate.

Which Massachusetts-born writer published Casey at the Bat in 1888 and never wrote another famous poem?

Ernest Thayer was 24 and wrote it for a newspaper humor column. American Heritage later called him a prize specimen of the one-poem poet.

After the first pitch is called against Casey in Casey at the Bat, whom does a fan shout to kill?

The umpire is saved by Casey himself, who raises a hand and quiets the furious crowd so the game can go on.

What does an overconfident Casey do with the first two pitches thrown to him in Casey at the Bat?

Lets them go by: he watches both without lifting the bat, sneering that the first one is not his style, and both are called against him.

Which animated sitcom spoofed the title Casey at the Bat for a softball episode with nine real big-leaguers?

The Simpsons called its 1992 episode Homer at the Bat, and stars including Ken Griffey Jr. and Darryl Strawberry voiced themselves as hired ringers.

In The Twilight Zone episode The Mighty Casey, titled after Casey at the Bat, what is the pitcher Casey?

A robot built by an inventor, Casey throws unhittable pitches for the broken-down Hoboken Zephyrs until he is fitted with a heart and loses his edge.

What food is the specialty of Casey's Corner, the Magic Kingdom restaurant themed to Casey at the Bat?

Hot dogs are the main fare, and a life-size statue of a ballplayer identified as Casey stands just outside the door.

Which magic duo staged Casey at the Bat as a race against time, one escaping a straitjacket while the other recited?

Penn & Teller hung the silent partner upside down over steel spikes, and the reciter sped up the poem to cut the time left for the escape.

Which future newspaper tycoon, a college friend, hired the author of Casey at the Bat as a humor columnist?

William Randolph Hearst knew him from the campus humor magazine and a theatrical society, and put him on a paper that Hearst's father had handed over.

Which towering vaudeville star turned Casey at the Bat into a hit by reciting it on stage for decades?

DeWolf Hopper first tried it on a theater full of ballplayers on the author's 25th birthday, and later judged the author's own reading the worst he had ever heard.

Which West Coast newspaper first printed Casey at the Bat, tucked into its Sunday pages in June 1888?

The San Francisco Examiner ran it to little notice; its staff were simply pleased when an East Coast paper thought enough of the verses to copy the last eight stanzas.

At which university did the author of Casey at the Bat edit a famous student humor magazine in the 1880s?

Harvard is where he ran the Lampoon and graduated with high honors in philosophy, an unlikely start for the writer of baseball's favorite verse.

Which lightly regarded batter rips a double just before the hero comes up in Casey at the Bat?

Blake, written off by the crowd as a hopeless hitter, tears the cover off the ball and suddenly gives the home side a chance.

Which humor magazine reprinted Casey at the Bat with Jack Davis art, then spoofed it as Casey at the Byte?

Mad kept returning to the poem for decades, recasting its hero as a professional gambler, a holdout in contract talks and a cocky young computer expert.

In Casey at the Bat, what does Casey rub on his hands before wiping them on his shirt?

Dirt goes on his hands as the whole ballpark stares, and the crowd applauds when he wipes it off on his uniform.

How does Casey answer the cheering crowd as he first steps up to the plate in Casey at the Bat?

Tips his hat: the poem says he lightly doffed it, an old word for lifting a hat in greeting, with a smile on his face and ease in his manner.

Mighty Casey of Casey at the Bat joined John Henry, Pecos Bill and which tall-tale hero on 1996 US stamps?

Paul Bunyan completed a set honoring American folk heroes, which put a ballplayer invented for a newspaper poem beside legends of the frontier.

In which city did an actor first recite Casey at the Bat on stage, with two big-league ball clubs in the audience?

New York hosted it at Wallack's Theatre in August 1888, when the recitation was added to the evening's show as a treat for the visiting players.

A sporting paper soon reprinted Casey at the Bat with the hero renamed for which real Boston star?

King Kelly was one of the two biggest names in the game, and putting him and his city into the verses gave them a point every local fan understood.

Which 1946 Disney package film of ten short segments includes an animated version of Casey at the Bat?

Make Mine Music moved the story to 1902, and the segment was later cut out of the feature and reissued in theaters as a short of its own.

Which silent-era star, later an Oscar winner for The Champ, played the lead in the 1927 film Casey at the Bat?

Wallace Beery took the title role in a feature-length silent film alongside Ford Sterling and ZaSu Pitts, 28 years after an Edison short had put the poem on screen.

What kind of stage work is The Mighty Casey, composer William Schuman's 1953 treatment of Casey at the Bat?

An opera, it premiered in Hartford, Connecticut, and its baseball-loving composer later reworked the score as a cantata for America's Bicentennial.

Which Cincinnati Reds star of the 1970s narrated an orchestral Casey at the Bat with his city's symphony?

Johnny Bench, the Reds' catcher, was the soloist the orchestra had in mind when it commissioned the piece, which went on to be played across the US and Canada.

Which California city claims to be the real setting of Casey at the Bat and renamed its ball club to match?

Stockton says the poet covered its team as a reporter, but a Massachusetts neighborhood makes a rival claim, and he himself said the poem had no basis in fact.

Which Super Nintendo role-playing game honors Casey at the Bat with a powerful but erratic weapon, the Casey Bat?

EarthBound makes it the strongest weapon in the whole game, with the catch that most swings with it fail to connect.

By his own count, roughly how many times did the actor who made Casey at the Bat famous recite it?

About 10,000 recitations was his own tally, and some counts run far higher; audiences kept demanding it at curtain calls for nearly half a century.

Which literary term, also used for Dryden's Mac Flecknoe, describes the style of Casey at the Bat?

Mock-heroic writing borrows the lofty style of epics for a trivial subject, so here a single turn at the plate is told as if it were a clash of ancient warriors.

Which bases hold the home side's runners when the hero finally comes up in Casey at the Bat?

Second and third are occupied, which puts both runners in scoring position and makes the man at the plate the potential winning run.

What is the score against the home side as its last inning begins in Casey at the Bat?

4–2 is the deficit, and when the first pair of batters go out quickly, a sickly silence falls over the home crowd.

What do a despairing few in the crowd do after the first two batters fail in Casey at the Bat?

Get up to leave: a straggling few walk out, while the rest cling to the hope that, in a phrase borrowed from Alexander Pope, springs eternal.

Which actor, famed for one of film's deepest voices, recorded Casey at the Bat with the Cincinnati Pops Orchestra?

James Earl Jones lent his famous bass to a 1996 recording arranged by Steven Reineke, one of many orchestral settings of the poem.

Which pen name, taken from a college nickname, did the author of Casey at the Bat sign to the poem?

Phin was short for Phinney, his nickname as a student, and with no real name on the verses, other men spent years claiming to have written them.

Which sportswriter wrote Casey's Revenge, a sequel giving the hero of Casey at the Bat another try?

Grantland Rice sends the slugger back up against the same pitcher with the bases full, and the ball is hit so far that it is never found.

Which comedian, Bob Hope's radio sidekick, narrated Disney's animated version of Casey at the Bat?

Jerry Colonna, who began as a trombonist, also voiced the March Hare in Alice in Wonderland and narrated another Disney short, The Brave Engineer.

Which puzzle columnist, famous for The Annotated Alice, also compiled The Annotated Casey at the Bat?

Martin Gardner slipped in a parody of his own, credited to Nitram Rendrag, which is his name spelled backwards.

Edward Terry Sanford, a classmate named as a model for the hero of Casey at the Bat, sat on which body?

The Supreme Court seated him in 1923. He and the poet had belonged to the same student society, which played a little baseball in the mid-1880s.

The full title of Casey at the Bat calls it A Ballad of the what, Sung in the Year 1888?

Republic gives a newspaper joke the ring of a national epic, a grand label for a comic poem about a single ball game.

After a second pitch is called against Casey in Casey at the Bat, what one-word insult does the crowd roar?

Fraud is the cry, echoed back across the park, until a single scornful look from the batter awes the multitude into silence.

Casey Stengel's nickname, later tied by fans to Casey at the Bat, began as a nod to which hometown?

Kansas City gave him the initials K.C., which one sportswriter said were stenciled on his bags, and the poem's huge popularity in the 1910s helped the new spelling stick.