The Southpaw

Casey with the Beater (or, Casey at the Bat)

Baseball's epic poem, "Casey at the Bat," translated from English into French, then back into English. Enjoy.

Casey with the Beater
by Ernest L Thayer (via Babelfish)

The prospects was not brilliant for neuf Mudville that the day,
The points held four to two, with but a turn of beater more to play.

And then when Cooney died at the beginning, and wheelbarrows made the same thing,
A coffin-like silence fell on the owners from the play.

Being in disorder a little is raised to enter major despair.
The rest clung to this hope which spouts out eternal in the human centre.
They thought, "so only Casey could but to obtain one to beat with that.
We would put upwards to equalize the money now, with Casey with the beater."  

Baseball Canto

If you buy Bob Dylan's latest CD, Modern Times, at Borders, you get a bonus CD: One of Dylan's XM Theme Time Radio Hours, this one on baseball. (You can also pick up a copy of radio CD alone, via Amazon.)

Poking around for info on this themed set, I found that Dylan includes his own rendition of "Take Me Out to the Ball Game." I can miss that. But I found something more precious: Lawrence Ferlenghetti's "Baseball Canto," a beat poetry-baseball mashup that's priceless. It's from the 2004 release of Live at the Poetry Center.

Here's a sample: Download.

The text is after the jump.