The Night Casey Was Born: The True Story Behind the Great American Ballad "Casey at the Bat"

by John Evangelist Walsh

For the first time, John Evangelist Walsh gives the story behind the poem and its young journalist author, as well as its inaugural performance in 1888 in New York's Wallack's Theater. The Night Casey was Born is a portrait of America in the earl

Genres: Baseball, History, Sports

256 pages, Hardcover

First published February 1, 2007

About the author

John Evangelist Walsh was an American author, biographer, editor, historian and journalist. He was best known for leading a team of 7 editors tasked with creating a condensed version of the Revised Standard Version of the Bible.

Reviews

[Tim Deforest]

I love early baseball history and this short cultural aside about the game is an enormously fun book. It covers the writing of the classic poem by a journalist named Ernest Lawrence Thayer and the fame it gained when DeWolf Hopper, a well-known comedic actor/singer in the New York theater, began to regularly recite it on stage.

The book covers a lot of interesting details, such as discussing the terminology used by sports reporters in 1888 and how Thayer incorporated this into the poem. There's an analysis of the poem and why it works so well.

There's a fascinating account of how the poem, published in the San Francisco Examiner and destined to be quickly forgotten, found its way across the continent and into the hands of Hopper, who was a strong baseball fan. There is a discussion of which real-life players were likely inspirations for Casey.

There's also a wonderful account of the first time he recited it on stage in a mock heroic manner that generated laughs from the audience. That audience included the New York Giants, the visiting Chicago White Stockings and a 68-year-old William Tecumseh Sherman. The baseball players had been especially invited. General Sherman, it seems, just wanted to see the play.

Hopper and his fellow performers were putting on a comic opera in the style of Gilbert and Sullivan, but includes extra stanzas in one of the songs about the Giants' chance of winning the pennant. After the second act, Hopper essentially stopped the action of the play to recite "Casey at the Bat" as an additional honor to the ball players. It was a hit with the entire audience and Hopper would go on to recite it thousands more times during the next 40+ years he spent trodding the boards.

I love knowing all this. "The Night Casey Was Born" is a jewel in the crown of baseball history books.

[Darel Krieger]

Very interesting story on how the famous baseball poem "Casey at the Bat" came to be introduced to the American public and how it became a phenomenon.

[Jodi]

An interesting "micro-history" of the ballad, baseball at the time, and the performer who made the ballad famous.

[Brian Taylor]

Interesting account of a piece of baseball and American history. An easy read and very enjoyable.