Casey at the Bat is a famous baseball ballad written by the American journalist and businessman Ernest Lawrence Thayer. The poem was first published in The Daily Examiner (now The San Francisco Examiner) newspaper on June 3, 1888.
Thayer wrote “Casey at the Bat” in 13 stanzas. The poem describes how the Mudville baseball team lost a game when Casey, the team hero, struck out in the final inning with two outs and the tying runs on base. The poem concludes with the famous stanza:
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 laughing, and somewhere children shout; But there is no joy in Mudville—mighty Casey has struck out.
The poem at first attracted little attention. However, later in 1888, it was brought to the attention of De Wolf Hopper, a popular American actor. Hopper gave a public recitation of the ballad that became a sensation. Hopper made a career out of dramatically reciting the work, claiming he performed it more than 10,000 times.
