The Montgomery advertiser., 1906-01-21
AUTHOR OF CASEY AT THE BAT''
 SETTLES CLAIMS TO ITS PARENT FACE

| spring or summer of that year. It was | the last of many ballads--some bet ter. some worse--that The Examiner | printed from my pen during my con- | nection with the paper In the capacity I of funny man." so called These bal 1 lads were usually signed Phin.' Casey. ! think; was signed with my initials , You ask me what special incentive l had for writing Casey. It was the same incentive that I had for writing a l thousand other things. It was my bu- l siness to write, and needed the money. There have been so many claimants to the doubtful honor of having writ l ten Casey at the Bat'-among others, I believe. the late Mike Kelly, of Bos- | n was worth my while to expose their | impotence. But sWilr Valentine or l his next friend Is such particularly | many imaginary facts and placarding me by name as cheap impostor--that am reluctantly compelled to say ! writing to me, and hope you will give publicity to any part of this letter or to all of 1t. as you may think fit. Ernest L. Thayer' Desirinb to corrobate MT. Thayer's statements as well as to obtain the exact date of the original publication, the Editor of The News wrote to The San l Francisco Examiner, asking that the paper he searched and an exact copy of I the original poem be forwarded to The | | Second Letter Arrives. | Before an answer could be received another letter came from MT. Thayer' Rome, Grand Hotel Du ouirinal, February 4. 1905. To the Sporting Edi- | the other day other facts about Casey l have occurred to me which perhaps | will be of interest to you. Except as originally, published in The Examin a.1u | printed--barring one or two cases Tn which I have furnished the copy. The reason for this I will explain. When the poem was first copied into an York Sun--the clipping editor cut oh the opening stanzas and began where 1 Casey advances to bat Later on De Wolf Hopper began to recite the com p1ete poem as 1t was given to him Dy Mir Archibald Gunther, who saw 1t in | The Examiner. Some one who heard l Hoppers recitation wrote out the first | five stanzas from menory--and a very bad memory he must have had--tacked them to the mutiiated version as it was printed in The Sun and many of It's exchanges and then published combi- nation which has been printed up and down the land as Casey at the Bat think that if the matter were of any importance the easiest way to establish the authorship would be to let the diff ferent claimants furnish copy which might be compared with the poem as it was first printed in the Examiner.
 T may say. in conclusions that. | though some of the mutilated reprints of Casey have my name on the title page, I have never auth0rized them. have left the poem to it's fate--except that once I had q few copies printed for circulation among my friends, and falsely claiming the poem, has it, seemed to me my duty to say something of my connection with it. Finally. while a written written baseball poem in Sioux City paper before 1888 1t could not have been Casey at the Bat and if anyone is anxious enough to search i the res patent. With apologies for troubling you, Very truly yours,
 Ernest l.. Thayer."
 Examiner Furnishes Data. News's request, the following was re- ceived from California:
 "To the Sporting Editor of The News Have carefully copied original lines of Casey at the Bat from The Examiner of Sunday, June 3, 1888. The signature 'Phin' was the pen name used by the 1tsaF lats Phinney Thayer The ksnSart eoPg IS en- Assistant Sporting Editor, The Exam san Francisco. Cal, March ?.
 The only inaccuracy in MT. Lenharts letter is that MT. Thayer Is neither the late" nor "Phinney"
 The original Casey at the Bat" is as
 Casey at the Bat.
 GA Ballad of the Republic. Sung in
 the Year 1S8S0
 The outlook wasn't brilliant for the
 Mudvile 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, 1 A sickly silence fell upon the patrons
 of the game.
 A struggling few got up to go in deep
 despair. The rest
 Clung to that hope which springs eter-
 nal in the human breast; They thought If only Casey could but
 get whack at that Wed put up even money now with
 Casey at the bat
 But Flynn preceded Casey. as did also And the former was a lulu and the lat | ter was cake;
 So upon that stricken multitude grim
 melancholy sat.
 For there seemed but little chance of
 Casey's getting to the bat.
 wonderment of all.
 And Blake. the much despised. tore the
 cover off the ball:
 i And when the dust had lifted, and the
 men saw what had occurred, There was Johnnie safe at second and
 Flynn a-hugging third. From 5000 throats and more there rose
 a lusty yell;
 It rumbled through the valley, 1t rat
 tied in the dell;
 It knocked upon the mountain and
 recoiled upon the flat.
 For Casey, mighty Casy, was advanc-
 ing to the bat.
 There was ease in Casey's manner as
 he stepped into his place; There was pride in Casey's bearing And when, responding to the cheers.
 he lightly doffed his hat No stranger in the crowd could doubt
 twas Casey at the bat Ten thousand eyes were on him as he
 rubbed his hands with dirt; Five thousand tongues apptauded when
 he wiped them on his shirt. Then while the writhing pitcher ground
 the ball into his hip.
 Defiance gleamed in Casey's eyes, a
 sheer curled Caseys lip.