Welcome back to the Daily Poem here on the Close Reeds Podcast Network.

I'm David Kern.

Today's poem is by Ernest Thayer.

He lived from 1863 to 1940 and was an American writer who is most famous for the poem that I'm going to read today.

Every now and then I like to read a poem that is specifically for the younger listeners, for the poem that I'm going to read today. Every now and then I like to read a poem

that is specifically for the younger listeners for the kids. And today is my son Lucas's third

birthday. So I figured today is a good day to read a poem for the kids. And this poem happens to be

in the form of a story. And my boys love baseball, you know, in the way that little kids do. And it's

baseball season now. So I thought that I would read Ernest Lawrence Thayer's Casey at the bat.

This may not be the most complicated of poems ever written, but it is one of America's best known

examples of comic verse.

You'll be familiar with it, I assume, and if not then memorize it.

But here it goes. This is Casey at the bat.

It looked extremely rocky for the Mudville Nine that day.

The score stood four to six with but an

inning left to play. And so when Cooney died at first and Burroughs did the same, a pallor wreathed the

features of the patrons of the game. A straggling few got up to go, leaving there the rest, with the hope which springs

eternal within the human breast. For they thought, if only Casey could get a whack at that,

they'd put up even money now with Casey at the bat. But Flynn preceded Casey, and likewise so did

Blake. And the former was a pudding and the latter was a fake.

So on that stricken multitude a death-like silence sat, for there seemed but little chance of Casey's getting to the bat.

But Flynn let drive a single to the wonderment of all, and the much-despised Blakey tore the cover off the ball.

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