Page:Famous Single Poems (1924).djvu/131

 states that it was "Adapted from the San Francisco Examiner."

Surely, after all this, it is perfectly safe, so far as the falsity of Mr. D'Vys's claim is concerned, to write: Q. E. D.

But the adaptation in the Sporting Times added one more snarl to the tangle. "Mike" Kelly, "the $10,000 beauty," "the Only Mike," "King Kelly," to mention only a few of his nicknames, was at that time the bright particular star of the Boston team, which had paid the then unprecedented sum of $10,000 for him. He was already the hero of a very popular song, "Slide, Kelly, Slide!" The Boston fans worshiped him, and his prowess at the bat had more than once pulled his team out of a hole. The poem fitted him perfectly and to change "Casey" to "Kelly" and "Mudville" to "Boston" was to give it a point which every baseball enthusiast at once understood. So it became increasingly popular with exchange editors, and many old-time devotees of the diamond still treasure it in its adapted form, believing it to be the original one.

Now for the real story of the poem.

When the late George Hearst decided to run for senator from California in 1885, he realized the need of an influential organ, and bought the San Francisco Examiner to promote his political ambitions. When the campaign was