III
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.
On May 13, 1888, I recited a poem at Wallack's Theater, Thirtieth Street and Broadway, New York City. No bronze memorial tablet marks the site, yet the day may come. Lesser events have been so commemorated. The poem was "Casey at the Bat."
I thought at the time that I was merely repeating a poem, a fatherless waif clipped from a San Francisco newspaper. As it turned out I was launching a career, a career of declaiming those verses up and down this favored land the balance of my life. When my name is called upon the resurrection morn I shall, very probably, unless some friend is there to pull the sleeve of my ascension robe, arise, clear my throat and begin:
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