THE LONGEST HIT ON RECORD

I've heard of hits by Wagner, hits that scaled the left field fence,
I've read about full many a clout tremendous and immense;
I know about that old time wheeze where Ryan hit a ball
That lit upon a steamer due in London late that Fall.
But the longest hit on record was a hit by Dan O'Shay
When the Bankers played the Brokers just five years ago to-day.

Dan played left field or right field, I can't remember which,
But when it came to batting—well, Dan had the batter's itch.
His fellow brokers often said—perhaps they did but joke—
They spent their all repairing baseball fences Danny broke.
But the longest hit Dan ever made, as I set out to say,
Was made against the Bankers just five years ago to-day.
A banker named O'Connor waited out in centre field
When Dan O'Shay came to the plate, his nerves all calm and steeled.
Dan hit the ball an awful soak, O'Connor clenched his teeth,
And after quite a fearsome sprint, the ball he got beneath.
Just as he caught the pellet two detectives hove in sight;
He put the ball inside his shirt and told the gang “GOOD NIGHT!”

He ran to far-off Labrador, the land of ice and snow,
And everywhere O'Connor went the ball was sure to go.
From there he went to Canada, from there he made Bengal,
Then journeyed he to Mandalay, accompanied by that ball.
And then he tried Australia, seeking diamonds in the dirt,
But all the time he kept that ball he'd hidden in his shirt.

He didn't like Australia, so he trekked to many a land,
From Greenland's icy mountains clear to India's coral strand.
He sweltered in strange deserts, onward, onward, day by day,
But always kept that baseball hit so hard by Dan O'Shay.
If you ever go to Sing Sing, which I hope you never will,
You'll find O'Connor in a cell with that same horsehide pill.

Yes, the longest hit on record was a hit by Dan O'Shay,
When the Bankers played the Brokers, just five years ago to-day.
THE LONGEST HIT ON RECORD

by William F. Kirk, 1910
