April 2002
Cylinder of the Month


See also the  Cylinders of the Month Archive.

A comedy skit apropos of springtime –
Casey as Umpire at a Ball Game by Russell Hunting (1898).


Casey as Umpire at a Ball Game
Company Columbia Phonograph Company
Cylinder # 9606
Category Humorous talking
Title Casey as Umpire at a Ball Game
Performed by Russell Hunting
Circa 1898
Announcement "Michael Casey Umpiring a Ball Game. A selection by Russell Hunting, for the Columbia Phonograph Company of New York and Paris."

One of the early stars of the humorous talking record was Russell Hunting, beginning in 1892, with his "Michael Casey" series of Irish comedy skits.

Here, the multi-talented Hunting, with his trademark "of New York and, uh, Paris" announcement for the Columbia Phonograph Company, performs all of the main speaking parts in this Casey installment.

To hear Casey as Umpire at a Ball Game   —

To hear an excerpt   —  
For help playing these sounds, click here.

As was the case with many talking records of the brown wax era, this selection was recorded at a relatively low number of revolutions per minute (RPM) – in this case 94-RPM as compared with the more typical 120-RPM for musical records – in order to squeeze the nearly 3½ minute skit onto a single record.



— This cylinder of the month is from the collection of  Michael Khanchalian —

                   


To hear other examples of wax cylinders, see the


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