Casey in the Classroom

The outlook wasn't brilliant for the Mudville Nine that Day
The score stood 4-2 with but one more inning to play
And so when Cooney died at First and Burrows did the same
A sickly silence fell upon the patrons of the game.

Do you like baseball? Maybe this little poem written in 1888 will start you on your way to inviting baseball into your life.

I played for the Mudville Nine. 80 years later. little known to my followers, I finished my hardball career with the Mudville 9. The names changed over the years from Cooney and Burrows to Dandy and the Hat. I shared the stories as we rode the bus to away games at Half Hollow Hills and Ward Melville.

Why did I tell stories? Because I could make my teammates laugh. I bet I can make you laugh as well. I am certainly going to try. Along the way, you will learn one of the best known poems in baseball lore and a few new words as well.

So climb into the Time Machine with me and let's go back to that day in Mudville when Lawrence Thayer brought me to lifeon a June afternoon and put me on the Sport Pages of the Hearst paper, San Francisco Examiner. It was June, 1888 and I was a ballplayer. Ballplaying is my life.