The score was tied at 4 to 4, a playoff game in sight;
The great arm of the Feser boy was failing in the light.A sharp, clear crunch, and out through space the leather pellet flew,
A blot against the darkening sky; a speck against the blue;
Above the fence in deep right field in rapid whirling flight,
The ball sailed on, the speck grew dim and soon was lost to sight.
This high point of sports history, to say nothing of verse, belonged not to Casey, but to "Prunty at Bat."
Written by Larry Desantels, it commemorates the 1938 Labor Day triple header, when Claremont beat Aberdeen - "the most famous moment in South Dakota baseball history."
There are many other, if less famous, moments of baseball immortalized in downtown Lake Norden, S.D.
Under the shadow of a water tower, on a Main Street with cafe, bar and feed store, is this plains town's claim to fame: the South Dakota Amateur Baseball Hall of Fame, the only such institution in the country.
To visit is to understand how baseball threads through families and the fabric of life here: how farm teams may mean teams from the farm, how every small town has its bleachers, players, its field of dreams.
Inside the low brick building decorated with crossed baseball bats there are old shoes, shin-guards and face masks that could have been excavated from a tomb. There's the case of historic baseballs, mounted on gold bases like champagne glasses for a formal table.
There are names recounting exploits of 77 inductees and notable teams: the Sioux Falls Canaries, the Eureka Cardinals, the Huron Stahl Flyers. Photos reveal players - those who went on to the majors, those who returned to play after illness - and other notables.
Among them is Amanda Clement, a determined, pretty young woman whose 1905 picture shows her in an umpire's uniform - South Dakota's first woman ump.
Another is handsome, young Joe McGovern, who played second base for Des Moines in the 1890s, then was sold to St. Louis in the National League before quitting to become a Methodist minister. His son, George, became a Democratic senator from South Dakota and a presidential candidate.
For the McGoverns, as for so many, baseball is part of family history.
Take the Antonens of Lake Norden. Although the amateur baseball association had been formed in the '30s, catcher Ray Antonen founded the hall of fame in 1976 when Helen Salo Mitchell, widow of a Lake Norden player, donated $40,000 to build it.
Ray Antonen died in 1987, and his son Rusty took over not only the livestock feed business but also the job of overseeing the hall, even though he never played baseball.
His older brother, Mel, however, did play, then went on to a related line of work - as a reporter covering the American League for USA Today.
In South Dakota, he explains, issues of who's going to play have "all the emotions of the big league in Washington."
"A lot of times whether a guy gets a job as a football coach," he says, "depends on if he can throw a baseball. Even feed salesmen my dad used to hire, he'd see if they could pitch."
And when local heroes leave for another town, as Lake Norden's Mickey Hoglund did in 1992 to coach basketball in Dell Rapids, there's a sense of betrayal.
"Losing Mickey Hoglund in Lake Norden is like losing Cal Ripken in Baltimore," he says.
It's the sense of participation that makes amateur ball big time, if not big league, here. In large cities, like Sioux Falls, Antonen says, there are people without "ties to South Dakota. The more cosmopolitan (people) like the minors. But South Dakotans still like amateur."
Danny Olson, who's been broadcasting games since 1959 and at 73 calls himself "the senior broadcaster of South Dakota," is also its unofficial baseball historian. He's compiling a record of the most dramatic endings over 60 years of state tournaments - like the longest in 1983, when Renner beat Scotland in 14 innings - to include in the hall of fame.
Baseball, he suggests, gets in the blood here so that in the winter, there's only "basketball, basketball, ice fishing - and waiting for spring training."
He also notes that baseball is not only a family but a lifetime affair.
"The axiom used to be," he says, "guys quit in their 30s. But now we've got guys in their 50s, and one guy turning 60 is coming back to play catcher next year."
Even without continuing to play, for some the game never ends. Jerry Des Lauriers quit at age 30 in 1951. Instead of signing with the Yankees, he got married, had a Chevy dealership in Huron - and raised a family of baseball players.
Now at 62, he's an avid fan of his grandson, John Marcus, who plays Little League and serves as vice president of the hall of fame.
"It's not Cooperstown," he laughs, "but we're sure proud of it."