Mudville - What the heck??

In my most recent story, I referenced "Mudville" and it dawned on me that our friends across the pond would have absolutely no idea what I was taking about.

Well, it's common in American grammar schools to introduce poetry to students in a "fun" way. One "fun" poem was written by Ernest Lawrence Thayer and it's about that favorite American pastime... baseball!

Title of the poem is: Casey at the Bat

and here is the last stanza:

Oh, somewhere in this favoured land the sun is shining bright,
The band is playing somewhere, and somewhere hearts are light;
And somewhere men are laughing, and somewhere children shout,
But there is no joy in Mudville - mighty Casey has struck out.

That is a classic poem.

There's actually a fairly good animated version of it, but I can't remember which studio did it. It may have been Warner Bros.

We could paraphrase the poem so that it make sense to the 2.5 billion cricket followers in the rest of the world.

Oh, somewhere in this favoured land the sun is shining bright,
The band is playing somewhere, and somewhere hearts are light;
And somewhere men are laughing, and somewhere children shout,
But there's no joy at the Oval 'cause Joe Root has been run out.

Nope.
Walt Disney 1946 Casey at the Bat HQ - YouTube

Cool. Thank you. I guess if it had been Warner Bros, Casey would have been played by Bugs.

I could paraphrase a good one about our current Prime Minister, but I don't think we do politics or political satire on here, do we?

Nooo, Bloo we don't want to do politics here or there would really be "no joy in Mudville".

Indeed.

Another version??

Oh, somewhere in this favoured land the sun is shining bright,
The band is playing somewhere, and somewhere hearts are light;
And somewhere men are laughing, and somewhere children shout,
But there is no joy in Mudville - Harry Kane's kick was out.