  ernest lawrence thayer (august 14, 1863 â august 21, 1940) was an american writer and poet who wrote "casey at the bat," "the single most famous baseball poem ever written" according to the baseball almanac, and "the nationâs best-known piece of comic verseâa ballad that began a native legend as colorful and permanent as that of johnny appleseed or paul bunyan." ==biography== thayer was born in lawrence, massachusetts and raised in worcester. he graduated magna cum laude in philosophy from harvard in 1885, where he was editor of the harvard lampoon and member of the hasty pudding theatrical club. william randolph hearst, a friend from both the pudding and lampoon, hired thayer as humor columnist for the san francisco examiner 1886â88.  thayer's last piece, dated june 3, 1888, was a ballad entitled "casey" ("casey at the bat") which made him "a prize specimen of the one-poem poet" according to american heritage. it took several months after its publication for the poem to make thayer famous, since he was hardly the boastful type and had signed the june 24 poem with the nickname "phin" which he had used since his time on the 
1863_births 1940_deaths American_poets Harvard_Lampoon_people People_from_Lawrence,_Massachusetts People_from_Worcester,_Massachusetts The_San_Francisco_Examiner_people Writers_from_Santa_Barbara,_California