Thomas Macaulay, Ernest Thayer, and Two Peoples Divided by a Common Ballad

Among the many signs of the growing popularity of baseball in the UK, Major League Baseball has announced the renewal of the "London Series" of games which began in 2019 when the Red Sox and Yanke...

Kessler at the Bat

Through an online dialog this summer I was introduced (via MLB's official historian John Thorn) to "Kessler at the Bat" by the inimitable Mikhail Horowitz--poet, parodist, satirist, social...

Can't Win For Losing: The Drama of the Mighty Casey

  Player photo: Tim Wiles, formerly of the Baseball Hall of Fame, in costume as The Mighty Casey.  The magical season of the year as experienced by fans of Ernest Thayer's "Casey at the Bat" is th...

Yogi, Poet Laureate of Baseball

On his birthday #OTD May 12, 1925, Caseyatthe.blog salutes Yogi Berra, Baseball Hall of Fame catcher and manager, Yankee immortal, and Poet Laureate of Baseball -- so titled by my freshman and soph...

Casey in Ulalysium

In 2023, "Casey in Ulalysium" was nominated for the fifth annual Saturday "Visiter" Awards, a feature of the International Edgar Allan Poe Festival & Awards in Baltimore, Maryland, Oct. 7 &a...

Casey on the Bench 1897-1900: Mighty Hopper Strikes Out

Thanks to Anika Orrock, artist, author, and illustrator of the featured image above ("The Mudville Nine"), used here with her permission. Of all the many artworks bringing to life Ernest Thayer's ...

Ambrose Bierce and The Fall of the Republic

Demagogues fixed a predatory eye on the inherent flaws of the American Republic. Like buzzards they circled the wounded behemoth thrashing in a bog, while a mob assembled on the grounds of the Uni...

Pathos and Baseball: Revisiting "Casey at the Bat"

"There's no crying in baseball..." in the iconic line uttered by Tom Hanks in his role as manager Jimmy Dugan in the 1992 movie "A League of Their Own." Well, there may or may not be crying in base...

The Ballad of Sam Winslow

If the companions of our childhood should turn out to be heroes, and their condition regal, it would not surprise us. [1]                         --Ralph Waldo Emerson, Representative Men   Pain...