Letters to the Editor
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Take me out to the ballgame
My two-year old daughter just *loves* TMOTTBG. We watch the Gene Kelly/Sinatra version on Youtube over and over and over (although it's the Nelly Kelly version, not Katie Casey). And we took her to her first ballgame the other day, and the seventh-inning stretch was like a revelation to her--thousands of people standing up and singing it together. Maybe it's just a fad--she loves "Happy Birthday to You" just as much.
But listening to the verses 100 times has made me wonder--what's the significance of having a prime-of-life female baseball fan insisting on going to the ballgame? Why not a small boy, for example? Or an old man? Was there something titillating in 1908 about a woman who prefers baseball to "going to a show"? Was (or is) it a male fantasy to have a female companion who "would root just like any man" and who heckles the umpire?