Abe Seltzer/SI
	MAILBAG Comments, questions or obviously unfounded criticism? To e-mail Donovan, use the form below. Your name: Your e-mail address: Your home town: Enter your question:

This week's E-Bagger of the Week -- OK, I admit, we've never had an E-Bagger of the Week, but being Friday and all, give us a break, would you? -- is Robby Browne of Hagerstown, Md.

Robby has instantly raised the level of discussion in these here parts with his query de la semaine -- see, I'm with you Robby -- touching on a literary question that has intrigued for more than a century.

The topic, fitting to the E-Bag, is Ernest Lawrence Thayer's classic work Casey at the Bat. So let's get on with Robby's question.

In English class this last month, we read Casey at the Bat in honor of the baseball season. I don't think Mr. Thayer knew a lot about baseball. Per the poem, with Blake on second and Flynn "a-hugging third," if Casey's as great as this crowd makes him out to be, I give Casey the intentional pass with first base open and face whatever schmuck they've got batting fifth. What's your take?

Well, Robby, we've now devolved into second-guessing fictional managers, have we?

Hey, OK by me.

Before answering, though, I had to make sure Robby wasn't sleeping in class. I needed to know he had his facts straight. So I walked into my son's room and there, nestled in with Dog Donovan (a classic in our house), The Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairly Stupid Fairy Tales, a bunch of Harry Potter books and Roberto, The Insect Architect, I found Thayer's poem, first published in 1888. And Robby, essentially, was correct.

To recap: The score "stood 4-2 with but one inning more to play." Some guy named Cooney and another named Barrows made two quick outs. Flynn, a "lulu," and Blake, a "cake" were due up before the mighty Casey. Fans were starting to take off. It looked, by all accounts, like a Dodgers game (though I'm not naming lulus or cakes on that team).

Then Flynn singled and Blake the Cake doubled, bringing up Casey. And we all know what happened after that.

Should the opposing manager have walked Casey, the best Mudville hitter (we assume), up two runs with an empty base and two outs?

I probably would have. A lot of real managers would have, Robby. But maybe this guy was working some untold percentages. Maybe he was going with his gut. Maybe he was asleep. Maybe he was afraid that his pitcher would go wild and, with another walk, put the winning run in scoring position.

Maybe he was simply Grady Little's great grandfather. Who knows?

Still, it all worked out. And that's baseball. Or baseball fiction, anyway.

Now get back to class. We have an E-Bag to do ...

Why do people have such a huge reaction about players taking steroids, but when pitchers get caught doctoring equipment like [Brendan] Donnelly the other day, there's hardly any reaction at all? The stories I'm reading focus on the confrontation between the two managers instead of the blatant cheating. How is using steroids a bigger form of cheating than doctoring baseballs?
-- Brandon Streicher, Tampa, Fla.

Excellent question, Brandon. Clearly, steroids are more dangerous to the public health than, say, pine tar or cork. But, as far as the game goes, you are absolutely right. Pine tar on a ball is cheating as much as spit on a ball or cork in a bat or The Clear in somebody's butt. (Or was that The Cream? Whatever.) To me, as much as I like Anaheim's Mike Scioscia, he and Donnelly don't have a leg to stand on. If a pitcher can't get a grip on the ball legally -- and, legally, they let you lick your fingers, for crying out loud, to help you get a grip -- maybe he should work on some hand-lengthening exercises or something.