‘The outlook wasn’t brilliant for the Mudville Nine that day;’ opens what 1888 poem by Ernest Thayer?
Casey at the Bat Casey at the Bat "Casey at the Bat: A Ballad of the Republic Sung in the Year 1888" is a baseball poem written in 1888 by Ernest Thayer. First published in "The San Francisco Examiner" (then called "The Daily Examiner") on June 3, 1888, it was later popularized by DeWolf Hopper in many vaudeville performances. It has become one of the best-known poems in American literature. The poem was originally published anonymously (under the pen name "Phin", based on Thayer's college nickname, "Phinney"). A baseball team from the fictional town of "Mudville" (implied to be the home team) is losing
Casey at the Bat Worcester, Massachusetts, where he wrote the poem in 1888; his family owned a wool mill less than a mile from Mudville's baseball field. However, residents of Stockton, California—which was known for a time as Mudville prior to incorporation in 1850—also lay claim to being the inspiration for the poem. In 1887, Thayer covered baseball for "The Daily Examiner"—owned by his Harvard classmate William Randolph Hearst—and is said to have covered the local California League team, the Stockton Ports. For the 1902 season, after the poem became popular, Stockton's team was renamed the Mudville Nine. The team reverted to the Mudville