Game One

I didn't write "Casey at the Bat," Ernest Lawrence Thayer did in 1888. But I thought it worth remembering after Game One of the American League Championship Series. I understand it's in the public domain, so here's your chance to enjoy it again.

 

The outlook wasn’t brilliant for the Mudville nine that day:
The score stood four to two, with but one inning more to play,
And then when Cooney died at first, and Barrows did the same,
A pall-like silence fell upon the patrons of the game.

A straggling few got up to go in deep despair. The rest
Clung to the hope which springs eternal in the human breast;
They thought, “If only Casey could but get a whack at that—
We’d put up even money now, with Casey at the bat.”

But Flynn preceded Casey, as did also Jimmy Blake,
And the former was a hoodoo, while the latter was a cake;
So upon that stricken multitude grim melancholy sat,
For there seemed but little chance of Casey getting to the bat.

But Flynn let drive a single, to the wonderment of all,
And Blake, the much despisèd, tore the cover off the ball;
And when the dust had lifted, and men saw what had occurred,
There was Jimmy safe at second and Flynn a-hugging third.

Then from five thousand throats and more there rose a lusty yell;
It rumbled through the valley, it rattled in the dell;
It pounded on the mountain and recoiled upon the flat,
For Casey, mighty Casey, was advancing to the bat.

There was ease in Casey’s manner as he stepped into his place;
There was pride in Casey’s bearing and a smile lit Casey’s face.
And when, responding to the cheers, he lightly doffed his hat,
No stranger in the crowd could doubt ‘twas Casey at the bat.

Ten thousand eyes were on him as he rubbed his hands with dirt;
Five thousand tongues applauded when he wiped them on his
     shirt;
Then while the writhing pitcher ground the ball into his hip,
Defiance flashed in Casey’s eye, a sneer curled Casey’s lip.

And now the leather-covered sphere came hurtling through the
     air,
And Casey stood a-watching it in haughty grandeur there.
Close by the sturdy batsman the ball unheeded sped—
“That ain’t my style," said Casey. “Strike one!” the umpire said.

From the benches, black with people, there went up a muffled
     roar,
Like the beating of the storm-waves on a stern and distant shore;
“Kill him! Kill the umpire!” shouted someone on the stand;
And it’s likely they’d have killed him had not Casey raised his
     hand.

With a smile of Christian charity great Casey’s visage shone;
He stilled the rising tumult; he bade the game go on;
He signaled to the pitcher, and once more the dun sphere flew;
But Casey still ignored it and the umpire said, “Strike two!”

“Fraud!” cried the maddened thousands, and echo answered
     “Fraud!”
But one scornful look from Casey and the audience was awed.
They saw his face grow stern and cold, they saw his muscles
     strain,
And they knew that Casey wouldn’t let that ball go by again.

The sneer is gone from Casey’s lip, his teeth are clenched in hate,
He pounds with cruel violence his bat upon the plate;
And now the pitcher holds the ball, and now he lets it go,
And now the air is shattered by the force of Casey’s blow.

Oh, somewhere in this favoured land the sun is shining bright,
The band is playing somewhere, and somewhere hearts are light;
And somewhere men are laughing, and somewhere children
     shout,
But there is no joy in Mudville—mighty Casey has struck out.

The Trouble with Research

 My novel is not about the Middle East. But in researching it I came across a remarkable story that anyone who thinks about today’s Middle East should read.

Needing to improve on my high-school-level understanding of World War I and the subsequent peace conference in Paris, I bought and began consuming a library shelf or two of books about the Great War, how it began and the manner of its conclusion. I was especially interested in learning what kind of Allied reasoning had required the mutilation of Hungary. Unlike the punishment of Germany, the post-war dismemberment of Hungary seemed like nothing more than the fruit of Georges Clemenceau’s private stubbornness combined with his ignorance of eastern Europe. Unlike Germany, Hungary hadn’t eagerly prosecuted the war, though it was the Austro-Hungarian empire that launched the first attack. The Hungarian prime minister István Tisza was the only official among the Central Powers to oppose the war, arguing correctly that it would lead to a disastrous weltkrieg (world war). He appears to have been the first to use that term. But Hungary’s punishment by the Treaty of Trianon was far greater than Germany’s by the Treaty of Versailles.

The problem with pursuing such research is that it becomes so easy to go astray. Before I had resolved my Clemenceau question I happened to pick up a dog-eared, paperback copy of Seven Pillars of Wisdom, T. E. Lawrence’s account of his role in organizing the Arab revolt against Ottoman rule—the same events portrayed in the movie “Lawrence of Arabia.”  While reading this, drawn in by Lawrence’s lyrical prose, I happened to hear a radio interview with an author who was saying that at the end of the first war the question of who would rule the Middle East had been decided in a five-minute conversation between the French prime minister Clemenceau and the British prime minister David Lloyd George. The book was titled Lawrence in Arabia: War, Deceit, Imperial Folly and the Making of the Modern Middle East. What he said sounded very much like my suspicion about what happened to Hungary. So I needed to know how reliable the author Scott Anderson was and how much he knew about Clemenceau. I found his book well researched and his Clemenceau-Lloyd George anecdote confirmed by the historian Margaret MacMillan in her detailed account of the peace conference, Paris 1919.

The remarkable five-minute conversation that sealed the future of the Middle East took place secretly in a London townhouse a year and a half before the Paris peace agreements were concluded, and it broke all the British promises made to the Arabs during their revolt against the Turks, a sad conclusion to the epic tale of the Arab struggle for self-rule. The result was a map drawn to suit European needs and ignore the tribal and sectarian concerns of the Arabs. We westerners shouldn’t wonder why Islamic extremists still focus their anger on us.

The view, which I gather is widely held, that a collection of self-important but small-minded European leaders blundered into the first World War for reasons that had more to do with self aggrandizement and fear of losing their power than with the welfare of their people seems a roughly accurate if over-simplified summary of the cause. The massive human slaughter they created was followed by a peace arrangement that ensured more world-wide war and tension, up to and including the recent beheadings in the Middle East.