There is Joy in Mudville!

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Posted By: chris

Picked this adult sized 1950's? vintage wool uniform up from a seller in TN. I wonder why Mudville TN didn't vie for the rights to Casey's team?

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(from Wikepedia):

Mudville
A rivalry of sorts has developed between the two cities claiming to be the Mudville described in the poem.

Holliston, MA - Mudville Village, Statue and Plaque Dedicated to "Casey" of "Casey at the Bat" residents claim it as the Mudville described in the poem. Thayer grew up in nearby Worcester, Massachusetts, where he wrote the poem in 1888; his family owned a woolen mill less than a mile from Mudville's baseball field.

However, residents of Stockton, California--which was known for a time as Mudville prior to incorporation in 1850--also lay claim to being the inspiration for the poem. In 1887, Thayer covered baseball for the San Francisco Examiner--owned by his Harvard classmate William Randolph Hearst--and is said to have covered the local California League team, the Stockton Ports. (For the 1902 season, after the poem became popular, Stockton's team was renamed the Mudville Nine. The team reverted to the Mudville Nine monicker for the 2000 and 2001 seasons. The Visalia Rawhide (Class 'A' California League) currently keep Mudville alive by playing in Mudville jerseys on June 3 each year.) Despite the towns' rival claims, Thayer himself told the Syracuse Post-Standard that "the poem has no basis in fact."

Residents of Marshalltown, Iowa (home of Hall of Famer Cap Anson) often refer to their town as "Mudville," though possibly for reasons of irreverence having little to do with Anson's former residency.



And a modern follow up poem with a collecting theme:

Finding Casey's Card
The outlook wasnt great for finding Caseys card.
The dealers denied they had him as I fought against the mob.
And then as Cooney was seen in mint and Barrows appeared the same,
a sense of elation came to me in this baseball hobby game.

A card shark got fed up and passed me in despair.
The rest clung to their hobby hopes and prayed the Casey card was near;
They thought, by the Topps high numbers, if we could only find his card,
well pay any price even if its marred.

Then Flynn (Caseys mate) was found in very good-
a crease along his neckline stretched into his wood.
So they all bid to possess that crazy players card
until all turned to silence when Mr. Mint got the final nod.

After Flynn, they found Jimmy Blake, a tobacco card mistake;
For Blake was frayed and ugly and had scratches on him from head to toe,
and the collectors were not interested
for the price he fetched was very low.

Then from fifty baseball card collectors there rose a mighty roar.
It echoed from every table, it bounced off the floor,
it was carried by the newsmen and was heard outside the door,
for the Casey card, the rarest card now everyone saw.

There was a full gloss in Caseys picture as he posed beside the plate
there were full white borders and a hawkish look upon his face.
And from an old shoebox he was raised above the crowd.
This symbol of the hobby now had everyone aroused.

Ten thousand dollars was offered; the smell of gum hung in the air.
Five thousand more, said another, as he took up on this dare,
Then while the price was raising beyond the hopes of hobby folk,
a disbelief filled the children's minds; for they thought this all was a joke.

For this gem-mint card was dropped and fluttered everywhere;
the rarest of cards went flipping and gave them all a scare.
And as the people scattered, poor Casey turned up tales
and silence filled this card show and ended all the sales.

From the dealers came a mumble that roused up to a roar.
Then the auctioneer came over and looked down on what they saw.
Raise him! Raise him! shouted the newsmen from the back.
But no one would pick up Casey as he lay by some wax packs.

Like some curse from the devil, Caseys origin was on display
and the owners face turned to horror for there would be soon hell to pay;
so he signaled to a friend to sell a Mantle rookie card,
but the words on Caseys back would forever leave him scarred.

Reprint! shouted everyone at once, and the echo answered Reprint!
to all this now lonely bunch; But baseball card collectors are not a discouraged race,
for now the plastic pages were turning at a faster pace.
They passed up a Wagner and ignored a perfect Cobb, just to find again the mighty Casey card

The smiles soon vanished from the childrens lips as they too joined in this game;
and I who viewed these mental flips thought everyone there insane.
And now someone gave a TV pitch in search of this cardboard gold,
asking everyone to even check their attics as this story is being told.

Oh, somewhere Caseys card is out there, or so these dreamers think,
for they will stir up this hobby nation until they find this missing link;
and somewhere I am laughing, for I made up that baseball card,
and the re-finding of poor Casey will indeed be very hard.

Written By Robert L. Harrison - 1990

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Posted By: Vincent

And something of the man who claimed to be the inspiration for the "Casey" in the poem: