Casey at the Bat

The poem’s message is not about Casey striking out. Striking out is a critical and inevitable element of a game in which a spheroid is hurled at speeds approaching 90 miles per hour by someone 60 feet away. Babe Ruth, the iconic long ball power hitter of Ernest Lawrence Thayer’s era, struck out more than 1,300 times in a 22-year career. Rather, the message is about Casey only swinging once. With reckless arrogance, Casey denies the reality of the game—it is a pitcher’s game, not a hitter’s game—and serenely decides to wait for a pitch he likes: “Casey stood a-watching [the pitch] in haughty grandeur” (30). Like a king or self-proclaimed god, Casey decides he controls the game. He motions to the pitcher that he is ready. He calms the fans when they overreact to the called strikes. Disconnected from the real-time drama playing out all around him, unconcerned about the team concept, and ignoring the emotional investment of the paying fans—save to tip his hat in a gesture of arrogance—Casey isolates himself within the vacuum of his pride and watches two good pitches sail past him. Ironically enough, the name Casey comes from the Scottish and means “watchful.”

The poem then is a cautionary tale that reveals the damage a flawed character causes given that flaw.