“The outlook wasn’t brilliant for
the Mudville nine that day:
The score stood four to two, with but one inning more to play,
And then when Cooney died at first, and Barrows did the same,
A pall-like silence fell upon the patrons of the game.”
Earnest Lawrence Thayer, “Casey At the Bat”
(https://poets.org/poem/casey-bat)
With
a baseball season about to begin and a beautiful spring sun shining in the sky,
what better poem to celebrate. The storytelling in this latter-day ballad is
exquisite, from the beautiful pastiche of language (“the former was a hoodoo,
while the latter was a cake”) to the elegant set-up of the dénouement. Not much
art in this ditty, but oh, so much style!
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