Summertime and the age-old call of “Play Ball!” What could be more exciting than going to a major league baseball game? Or playing a few innings of baseball with the other kids in the neighborhood or on a Little League team? Baseball and summer have gone together like hot dogs and buns for more than a century. No won[1]der baseball is summer’s favorite sport.
In 2001, illustrator Christopher Bing used this time-honored tradition in a picture book, Casey at the Bat, which became a Caldecott winner. The original poem: “Casey at the Bat: A Ballad of the Republic Sung in the Year 1888,” was written by Ernest Lawrence Thayer. It was first published on June 3, 1888 in the San Francisco Examiner. Only a few people noticed the poem at first, but it soon became one of the most popular and best-known poems in American literature.
Casey, the famous baseball player of the Mudville nine, is a fictional character. But, that doesn’t stop him from being featured in many movies and tv episodes. In 1927, a feature-length silent film starring Wallace Beery told the story of “Casey at the Bat.” Walt Disney made two cartoon features starring Casey: “Casey at the Bat” in 1946, which uses the original poem, and “Casey Bats Again” in 1954. In the second version, released on July 16, 1954, Casey’s nine daughters made sure that this time Casey wins! Don’t you love the idea of rewriting history?
The poem has been used in songs and plays, translated into French and Hebrew, rewritten and parodied in so many ways, it’s impossible to list them all! On July 11, 1996, “Mighty Casey” was honored with his own commemorative stamp by the United States Postal Service. Casey’s stamp was part of a set commemorating American folk heroes such as Paul Bunyan and John Henry.
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