“Casey at the Bat” has served as fodder for generations. Ernest L. Thayer’s poem (subtitled “A Ballad of the Republic”) has appeared 
in several incarnations as a juvenile picture book, portrayed by the likes of Leroy Neiman 
and C.F. Payne, among others. In one of the most visually and socially dazzling versions,
Joe Morse depicts the story from an urban, inner-city point of view.
“Casey” has also led to dozens of imitations and extensions of the original story (“Casey Returns,” “Casey’s Daughter”) Listen Garison Keeler’s version, “Casey: The Other Point of View” from A Prairie Home Companion; the poem appears at the 35-minute mark in the second part of the show. The poem has been recorded by seasoned performers such as James Earl Jones and baseball stars such as Johnny Bench and Dave Winfield, with full orchestral backup.
One of my favorites treatises is The Annotated Casey at the Bat: A Collection of Ballads About the Mighty Casey/Third, Revised Edition, released by Dover Publications in 1995, which includes many of the aforementioned versions.
The ballad has also spawned several full-length works of 
fictional prose, including Frank Deford’s Casey on the Loose (1989), as well as a 1986 film version starring Elliot Gould, Carol Kane, and Howard Cosell. Here’s a review of The Night Casey Was Born, a new non-fiction “biography” of the poem, written byJohn Evangelist Walsh.
is available on Amazon.com,
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