Famous Single Poems
"Casey at the Bat" first appeared in the San Francisco Examiner in the early eighties. It was found by Archibald Clavering Gunter, who gave it to me. I recited it in New York City at Wallack's Theatre. I should think about '85. I did not find out until four years later that the initials E. L. T. at the bottom of the article were those of Mr. Ernest L. Thayer of Worcester, Mass. I met him very pleasantly and he gave me some manuscripts of other works of his, which are just as good as "Casey" but not so appealing to the public. Many people have claimed the authorship of "Casey," but I know beyond the peradventure of a doubt that Mr. Thayer was the one. I have recited it heaven knows how many thousand times, and shall probably continue so to do until the end of my terrestrial career, and probably in the Great Beyond.
In an interview published in Caste, some years ago, Mr. Hopper names 1887 definitely as the year in which he began to recite the poem, and here again he says that the copy which Mr. Gunter gave him was signed E. L. T. Now of course he could not have recited it either in 1885 or 1887 if Mr. Thayer wrote it; and if the version Mr. Gunter gave him was signed E. L. T. it could not have been cut from the Examiner, or been copied from the Examiner, because the verses there were signed "Phin."
When these discrepancies were pointed out
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