Page "King Kelly" Paragraph 35

There is an unsettled debate about whether Kelly was the model for the title character in Ernest Lawrence Thayer ’ s 1888 poem " Casey at the Bat.

" Thayer, as a baseball reporter for the San Francisco Examiner, had seen Kelly play after the 1887 season, when he was on a playing tour to San Francisco.

A " best guess " is to take Thayer at his word that he chose the name " Casey " after a non-player of Irish ancestry he once knew.

However, open to debate is who, if anyone, he modeled Casey's baseball situations after.

Arguably the best big league candidate is Kelly, the most colorful, top player of the day of Irish ancestry.

Thayer, in a 1905 letter, singles out Kelly as showing " impudence " in claiming to have written the poem.

If he still felt offended, Thayer may have steered later comments away from connecting Kelly to it.

Cap Anson 2, the definitive biography of Kelly, states that it did not find Kelly claiming to have been the poem ’ s author.