“…But there is no joy in Mudville, Mighty Casey has struck out.”

Those are the last words of Ernest Lawrence Thayer’s classic baseball poem titled, “Casey at the Bat,” written and published in 1888, where an overconfident, narcissistic, egomaniacal, baseball player whose alter ego may have reappeared in real life as, “The Great Bambino,” as sportscasters, writers and fans followed the Great Babe Ruth. “Mighty Casey,” along with Ruth, also may have been part of the inspiration for the fictional character nicknamed, “The Whammer,” in the 1984 movie, “The Natural,” though many outcomes of “The Sultan of Swat,” and one, not by The Whammer, but rather of Roy Hobbs, were quite different than the last at-bat people remember about Casey’s in Mudville. Casey, in the poem by Thayer, was the player the fans of Mudville thought would be the hero of a baseball game, turning Mudville into a state of victorious frenzy, but instead left them sad and disappointed, when he swung through strike three, and The Mudville Nine lost on that fateful fictional day.

The game of baseball has been the sport, I feel, that’s presented and provided the most, and by far, the best fantasy, fiction, and real-life emotional scenes and moments, witnessed by anyone who has followed the game in person, on big and small screens, in poetry, prose, and even in the world of music. Baseball, I feel, (and so does Sally based on the displays in our home), is the greatest “collectable” sport that people follow, evidenced by the collections people, like Sally and me (truthfully, more me than her), who do collect so much baseball memorabilia as compared to other sports. (Actually, she’s the most wonderful and understanding wife a man could ever have, who lets me clutter our home with so much memorabilia of my favorite sport. I hit a Grand Slam when I met her.) Our home features baseball designed furniture, baseball cards, bobbleheads, memorable baseballs (some autographed, some marking baseball activities we’ve experienced), framed jerseys, hats, Negro League memorabilia, framed art pieces (photos and posters), framed baseball jig-saw puzzles, vintage baseball gloves and catchers’/umpires’ masks, autographed bats, and we even have stadium seats from three homes of the Cleveland Indians/Guardians [League Park 1891-1946, Municipal Stadium 1932-1994, (The Indians used both League and Municipal ’32-’46), and Jacob’s/Progressive Field 1994-Present], a talking Abbot and Costello, “Who’s on First” figurine, and even a shrine to Jobu (from Major League), an encased crystal baseball etched with Chief Wahoo and the former team nickname, “Indians,” resting in a small baseball glove, sitting on the middle of our mantle, and many other tchotchkes on display as décor in our home.

In my lifetime, I’ve seen more baseball movies made in all genres (fiction, non-fiction, fantasy, biography, autobiography, fantasy, reality, and instructional), multiple times, than in any other sport. I have a collection of those baseball movies and many instructional videos in my man cave. I could probably get rid of the videos and use the internet to watch them, but I still like sliding the videos into my nine-inch, combination TV-VCR, and watching them like I did in my days while coaching the sport.

Baseball has also offered countless numbers of books in all the aforementioned list of genres. I have a full bookcase in my cave, holding a small library of baseball books, and I have a small table with a shelf that holds many large books on baseball, most of those picture books of stadiums, and baseball encyclopedias. I have some books that were written and published before 1970, so they aren’t even up to date on baseball records. Other types of baseball books I know I, and many other baseball fans have, are scrapbooks, some of times when they, or their kids played, some of pictures with baseball players, or pictures of baseball players (some autographed, some not), pictures newspaper clippings from games Jon and/or I have experienced, and of so many experiences associated with baseball that we’ve been lucky enough to attend and share.

Hearing the words of Garrett Morris’s fictitious character, Chico Escuela, in the early days of Saturday Night Live, “Baseball been berra, berra, good to me,” and the words of Robert Redford’s character, Roy Hobbs, in The Natural, “God, I love baseball, I often feel those two lines were written with me in mind.

With Spring Training in full swing, and as the new baseball season begins on all levels from Major League all the way down to T-Ball, we should take a moment to recall and/or share with anyone we want to remind of the greatness of baseball, the soliloquy of the late James Earl Jones’s character Terrance Mann, in the movie Field of Dreams,

“Ray, people will come, Ray. They’ll come to Iowa for reasons they can’t even fathom. They’ll turn up your driveway, not knowing for sure why they’re doing it. They’ll arrive at your door as innocent as children, longing for the past.

Of course, we won’t mind if you look around, you’ll say. It’s only twenty dollars per person, and they’ll pass over the money without even thinking about it, for it is money they have, and peace they lack. And they’ll walk out to the bleachers and sit in shirt sleeves on a perfect afternoon. They’ll find they have reserved seats somewhere along one of the baselines, where they sat when they were children, and cheered their heroes. And they’ll watch the game, and it’ll be as if they’d dipped themselves in magic waters. The memories will be so thick, they’ll have to brush them away from their faces.

People will come, Ray. The one constant through all the years, Ray, has been baseball. America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers. It’s been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt, and erased again, but baseball has marked the time. This field, this game, it’s a part of our past, Ray. It reminds us of all that once was good, and it could be again.

Ohhhhhhhh, people will come, Ray. People will most definitely come.”

Whenever Spring arrives, be one, or more, of those people who heed the words of Iowan Ray Kinsella’s “voice,” and come to the games because someone created the sport and built a field, and enjoy a great 2025 Baseball Season!