Casey At The Bat By Ernest Lawrence Thayer

In the poem, Casey at the Bat by Ernest Lawrence Thayer, a baseball team from the town of Mudville was trailing their opponents 4-2 in the final inning of a game. The fans’ notions of the game’s outcome weren’t good because various players (Cooney and Borrows) were out at first base; and the next two players up to bat were seen as lousy. The third player in line to bat, however, was a star player of the team; Casey, on whom they would bet were he up to bat. To the audience’s pleasant surprise, the two lousy players (Flynn and Jimmy Blake) batted well and made it to second and third bases. The crowd was ecstatic that Casey was finally up and their team once more had a chance to win. Casey flaunted himself to the audience, in a sly and arrogant manner, and let the first two

There seemed to be little chance for a positive resolution, but to their surprise, two of their least impressive players perform well, giving their star player, Casey, a chance to change the outcome of the game. Unfortunately, in his pride, Casey did not deliver what the audience expected of him and therein sealed the regrettable fate of the

The roar of the crowd when Casey first ignored a pitch was described as being "like the beating of the storm waves on a stern and distant shore", which is a simile that portrays the great magnitude of their reaction. Their “lusty yell” when Casey went to bat was said to have "rumbled through the valley, it rattled in the dell; it knocked upon the mountain and recoiled upon the flat". This is a hyperbole; an exaggeration of the crowd’s excitement. Other improbable exaggerations included when Blake “tore the cover off the ball”, when Cooney “died at first” and when the air was “shattered by the force of Casey’s