Thanks, Len, for that link, and for both y'all calling attention to differing versions. Of course, I guess the score has to be a difference of 2 runs (or max 3) for the poem to make much sense. So 2-4 or 4-6, either way. I suspect any change from 4-2 to 2-4 was to make it apparent that Casey's team was losing.LenXZ1 wrote:I did some other checking also and discovered that there are several different versions. This one, though, seems to have some real errors, because it disagrees so often with any other version that I could find. Even the score is different--all the others say that it was 2 to 4 (or 4 to 2), but this has four to six. Also there are a number of single-word variations from the others that are most similar to this one.chocoholic wrote:There is more than one version of the poem out there so I think the author must have revised it at some point. This text has "the," another has "one" and there are numerous other differences too:
http://www.theotherpages.org/poems/thayer01.html#1
That's the version I recorded a few years ago and it was interesting to do another one this time. I am going to wildly guess that the one we are doing here might have been an earlier version, because the other one seems to have a little easier flow, at least to me.
Oh, well, it is a great one to read anyway. If anyone would like to see the story of the origin and background of the poem, here is a good site to look at: http://www.liben.com/caseyhistory.html
Len
There are probably small differences in Abbott & Costello's performances of "Who's on first," too. But in one sense, there doesn't really have to be a definitive author's text: certainly there are wide variations is extant Shakespeare texts, which lends to a sort of "take your pick." Anyway, I think authors have the right to improve or amend their texts after once published (not to imply that anyone here is saying anything different).
So, I write this as a writer myself, who has revised his work after publication...but mainly as a huge baseball fan.
