“Old Cy Young”

George S. Applegarth had a varied career as a journalist for papers in Buffalo, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh and New York.  He covered sports, wrote humor columns, reported on WWI from the front lines in Europe, and wrote poetry.

He published two “sequels” to Ernest Thayer‘s “Casey at the Bat” in his 1918 book “Pep: The Red Book of Sports for Red-Blooded Readers.”  Both poems are from the point of view of the pitcher—who he named Jake Weinerkraut, and who was a frequent character in his baseball poems—“The Man Who Struck Out Casey,” is Weinerkraut’s account of the game, and in “Why Casey Fanned,” the pitcher tells how he used his glass eye to blind Casey before the final pitch.

In May of 1912, Cy Young, battling arm problems, left the Boston Braves; the 45-year-old spent the first month of the season with the club having not thrown a pitch.  His career over, Applegarth honored the all-time win leader in The Pittsburgh Gazette-Times:

Cy Young

Old Cy Young

Old Cy Young!  How the very name

Breathes of the zest of the baseball game,

Conjuring pictures of crowded stands,

Echoing voices and clapping hands;

Players striving with might and main,

Moments burdened with stress and strain,

Nerves as tense as a whipcord strung,

And right in the heart of it,

Parcel and part of it—

Old Cy Young.

Old Cy Young!  How men grown gray

Smile as they read that name today;

Smile when they see that sturdy frame

Looming still in the good old game,

Years roll back and they feel once more,

Thrills and throbs of the days of yore;

Tales come leaping to many a tongue,

Telling the fame of him,

Lauding the name of him—

Old Cy Young.

Old Cy Young!  What a name forsooth!

Yet a paradox that tells the truth;

Old in the annals of baseball fame,

Young as the day when he entered the game;

Old in the measure of full success,

Young in the spirit of youthfulness,

Long may the praise of his deeds be sung,

Here’s to good health to him,

Long life and wealth to him—

Old Cy Young

Tags: "Casey at the Bat", Boston Braves, Cy Young, Ernest Thayer, George S. Applegarth