Baseball On This Date

Today is February 4, 2017. Travel back with me to this date in 1893. We're headed to the Columbia recording studio in New York City where we'll hear Russell Hunting, one of the recording world's best known voices at the time, perform and record Casey at the Bat, a poem about baseball which will become one of the best known of any time.   Casey at the Bat, by Ernest L. Thayer It looked extremely rocky for the Mudville nine that day; The score stood two to four, with but an inning left to play. So, when Cooney died at second, and Burrows did the same, A pallor wreathed the features of the patrons of the game. A straggling few got up to go, leaving there the rest, With that hope which springs eternal within the human breast. For they thought: "If only Casey could get a whack at that," They'd put even money now, with Casey at the bat. But Flynn preceded Casey, and likewise so did Blake, And the former was a pudd'n and the latter was a fake. So on that stricken multitude a deathlike silence sat; For there s