caseynineinnings-blog

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Casey At The Bat Read By James Earl Jones

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Casey At The Bat by Ernest L. Thayer

Casey At The Bat by Ernest L. Thayer The outlook wasn't brilliant for the Mudville 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, A pall-like silence fell upn the patrons of the game. A straggling few got up to go in deep despair. The rest Clung to the hope which springs eternal in the human breast; They though, "If only Casey could but get a whack at that- We'd put up even money now, with Casey at the bat." But Flynn preceded Casey, as did also Jimmy Blake, And the former was a hoodoo, while the latter was a cake; So upon that stricken multitude grim melancholy sat, For there seemed but little chance of Casey getting to bat. But Flynn let drive a single, tot he wonderment of all, And Blake, the much despised, tore the cover off the ball; And when the dust had lifted, and men saw what had occurred, There was Jimmy safe at second and Flynn a-hugging third. Then from five thousand throats and more there rose a lusty yell; It rumbled through the valley, it rattled in the dell; It pounded on the mountain and  recoiled upon the flat, For Casey, mighty Casey, was advancing to the bat. There was ease in Casey's manner as he stepped into his place; There was pride in Casey's bearing and a smile lit Casey's face. 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 applauded  when he wiped them on his shirt; Then while the writhing pitcher ground the ball into his hip, Defiance flashed in Casey's eyes, a sneer curled Casey's lip. A now the leather-covered sphere came hurtling through the air, And Casey stood a-watching it in haughty grandeur there. Close by the sturdy batsman the ball unheeded sped- "That ain't my style," said Casey. "Strike one," the umpire said. Form the benches, black with people, there went up a muffled roar, Like the beating of the storm-waves on a stern and distant shore; "Kill him! Kill the umpire!" shouted someone on the stand; And it's likely they'd have killed him had not Casey raised his hand. With a smile of Christian charity great Casey's visage shone; He stilled the rising tumult; he bade the game go on; He signaled to the pitcher, and once more the dun sphere flew; But Casey still ignored it and the umpire said, "Strike two!" "Fraud!" cried the maddened thousands, and echo answered "Fraud!" But one scornful look from Casey and the audience was awed. They saw his face grow stern and cold, they saw his muscles strain, And they knew that Casey wouldn't let that ball go by again. The sneer is gone from Casey's lip, his teeth are clenched in hate, He pounds with cruel violence his bat upon the plate; And now the pitcher hold the ball, and now he let's it go, And now the air is shattered by the force of Casey's blow. Oh, somewhere in this favoured land the sun is shining bright, The band is playing somewhere, and somewhere hearts are light, And somewhere men are laughing, and somewhere children shout, But there is no joy in Mudville - mighty Casey has struck out.

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Take Me Out To The Ball Game - Frank Sinatra & Gene Kelly

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Disney's Casey At The Bat

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Winter in Fenway

Winter in Fenway (sonnet 97) from DGA Productions on Vimeo.

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The Crowd At the Ball Game - William Carlos Williams

The Crowd at the Ball Game By William Carlos Williams The crowd at the ball game is moved uniformly by a spirit of uselessness which delights them - all the exciting detail of the chase and the escape, the error the flash of genius - all to no end save beauty the eternal - So in detail they, the crowd, are beautiful for this to be warned against saluted and defied - It is alive and venomous it smiles grimly its words cut - The flashy female with her mother, gets it - The Jew gets it straight - it is deadly, terrifying - It is the Inquisition, the Revolution It is beauty itself that lives day by day in them idly - This is the power of their faces It is summer, it is the solstice the crowd is cheering, the crowd is laughing in detail permanently, seriously without thought.

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Baseball Canto by Lawrence Ferlinghetti

Baseball Canto By Lawrence Ferlinghetti Watching baseball, sitting in the sun, eating popcorn, reading Ezra Pound, and wishing that Juan Marichal would hit a hole right through the Anglo-Saxon tradition in the first Canto and demolish the barbarian invaders. When the San Francisco Giants take the field and everybody stands up for the National Anthem, with some Irish tenor's voice piped over the loudspeakers, with all the players struck dead in their places and white umpires like Irish cops in their black suits and little black caps pressed over their hearts, Standing straight and still like at some funeral of a blarney bartender, and all facing east, as if expecting some Great White Hope or the Founding Fathers to appear on the horizon like 1066 or 1776. But Willie Mays appears instead, in the bottom of the first, and a roar goes up as he clouts the first one into the sun and takes off, like a footrunner from Thebes. The ball is lost in the sun and the maidens wail after him as he keeps running through the Anglo-Saxon epic. And Tito Fuentes comes up looking like a bullfighter in his tight pants and small pointy shoes. And the right field bleechers go mad with Chicanos and blacks and Brooklyn beer-drinkers. "Tito! Sock it to him, sweet Tito!" And sweet Tito puts his foot in the bucket and smacks one that don't come back at all, and flees around the bases like he's escaping the United Fruit Company. As the gringo dollar beats out the pound. And sweet Tito beats it out like he's beating out usury, not to mention fascism and anti-semitism. And Juan Marichal comes up, and the Chicano bleechers go loco again, as Juan belts the first ball out of sight, and rounds first and keeps going and rounds second and rounds third, and keeps going and hits paydirt to the roars of the grungy populace. As some nut presses the backstage panic button for the tape-recorded National Anthem again, to save the situation. But it don't stop nobody this time, in their revolution round the loaded white bases, in this last of the great Anglo-Saxon epics, in the territorio libre of Baseball.

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Baseball by John Updike

Baseball by John Updike It looks easy from a distance, easy and lazy, even, until you stand up to the plate and see the fastball sailing inside, an inch from your chin, or circle in the outfield straining to get a bead on a small black dot a city block or more high, a dark star that could fall on your head like a leaden meteor. The grass, the dirt, the deadly hops between your feet and overeager glove: football can be learned, and basketball finessed, but there is no hiding from baseball that some are chosen and some are not - those whose mitts feel too left handed, who are scared at third base of the pulled line drive, and at first base are scared of the shortstop's wild throw that stretches you out like a gutted deer. There is nowhere to hide when the ball's spotlight swivels your way, and the chatter around you falls still, and the mothers on the sidelines, your own among them, hold their breaths, and you whiff on a terrible pitch or in the infield achieve something with the ball so ridiculous you blush for years. It's easy to do. Baseball was invented in America, where beneath the good cheer and sly jazz the chance of failure is everybody's right, beginning with baseball.

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The Night Game by Robert Pinsky

The Night Game By Robert Pinksy Some of us believe We would have conceived romantic Love out of our own passions With no precedents, Without songs and poetry - Or have invented poetry and music As a comb of cells for the honey. Shaped by ignorance, A succession of new worlds, Congruities improvised by Immigrants or children. I once thought most people were Italian, Jewish or Colored, To be white and called something like Ed Ford Seemed aristocratic, A rare distinction. Possibly I believed only gentiles And blonds could be left-handed. Already famous After one year in the majors, Whitey Ford was drafted by the Army To play ball in the flannels Of the signal Corps, stationed In Long Branch, New Jersey. A night game, the silver potion Of the lights, his pink skin Shining like a burn. Never a player I liked or hated; a Yankee, A mere success. But white the chalked-off lines In the grass, white and green The immaculate uniform, And white the unpigmented Halo of his hair When he shifted his cap: So ordinary and distinct, So close up, that I felt As if I could have made him up, Imagined him as I imagined The ball, a scintilla High in the black backdrop Of the sky. Tight red stiches. Rawlings. The bleached. Horsehide white: the color. Of nothing. Color of the past And of the future, of the movie screen At rest and of blank paper. "I could have," The mind. The black. Backdrop, the white Fly picked out by the towering Lights. A few years later On a blanket in the grass By the same river A girl and I came into Being together To the faint muttering Of unthinkable Troubadours and radios The emerald Theater, the night. Another time, I devised a left-hander Even more gifted Than Whitey Ford: A Dodger. People were amazed by him. Once, when he was young, He refused to pitch on Yom Kippur.

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Science Behind The Knuckleball

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Take Me Out To The Ball Game - Dr. John

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Former Pelican Stadium

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2014 baseball cards.

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Go Zephyrs! My well worn baseball hat.

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Willie Stargell Round/Square Quote

"They give you a round bat and they throw you a round ball and they tell you to hit it square." - Willie Stargell Found it at this collection of Stargell's quotes.

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Play Ball

Time to restart this thing. This will be a collection of writings, pictures, and quotes about baseball. Sometimes I might find some good documentaries online to put on here. I might report on games I go to, or events in baseball. There will be long form writing and maybe even some fiction (and with some of the long form writing, there might be elements of fiction there as well for the pieces coming from my memory since sometimes it is hard to separate the fact from the myth). I love baseball. I love it on all levels and fronts. I loved playing it even though I wasn't that good. I love watching it in person and on TV. I love listening to it on the radio, which might be the best medium for broadcasting baseball games. I love watching movies about and documentaries about baseball. I will try and update the site daily to keep things going. This blog will have a mirror site on blogspot. My main goal is to create the writing I want to read about baseball. I want to tell the baseball stories I know and have in my head. I hope you will join me.