Was 'Casey at the Bat' written about a real Casey?

Answer 1

The author, Ernest Lawrence Thayer, claimed not to have had a particular player in mind when he wrote "Casey at the Bat." But, some people think that 1880s Boston Red Sox player Mike Kelly was the model for the character.

Two small towns have both claimed to be the model for the town of Mudville: Holliston, Massachusetts, and Stockton, California.

There's additional evidence to support the "Stockton, CA" theory as well, as reported in a well-researched article by the Stockton Record some years ago.

Like nearly all small towns in America at the time, Stockton in the late 19th-century fielded a semi-professional baseball team and participated in league play with other local communities. If one digs back through the historical record and researches the team rosters from these towns, many of the names used by Thayer in his iconic poem begin to appear in real life as well.

Some of these have been shortened, most likely to maintain the poem's cadence, but their resemblance to real-life baseball players from the time period and region is unmistakable. In fact, after a thorough search, the only name that doesn't appear to have a basis in reality is that of Casey himself.

Apparently Thayer thought it would be in poor taste to base his goat on a living person.

Answer 2

No, "Casey at the Bat" is a fictional poem written by Ernest Thayer in 1888. It tells the story of a fictional Baseball player named Casey who strikes out in a crucial moment of a game. The character of Casey was not based on a real person.