Letters to the Editor
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NO love in the USA
No one sings take me out to the ball game except old, right wing, fuddy duddies in wheel chairs and 3 year olds. In fact, barring few examples, there is minimal to no singing, movement, standing or, for that matter, watching of anything not on the jumbotron, anyway. People go to basketball games and baseball games to spend too much money of hot dogs and watch people. Football is much better, although the foot of corporate advertising dollars is squeezing the hoi polloi out of that sport as well.
I couldn't think of a topic LESS worth writing about.
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Misc. stuff
First, this is a great article. And I'm speaking as somebody who could care less about baseball. Second, "Tessie" dates from around that time, was it included (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tessie)? The first I had heard of that song was when the Dropkick Murphys covered it, but it's extremely catchy.
Also, to "A Big Old Geek", O's fans don't extend the O during
"O, say can you see...", they do it near the end of the song, at "O say, does that...".
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Steve Goodman!
Not only for "Go Cubs Go!" but also for "A Dying Cub Fan's Last Request", featuring the ever-true lines: "Do they still play the blues in Chicago, when baseball season rolls around? When the snow melts away, do the Cubbies still play in their ivy-covered burial ground?"
Damn, I miss Wrigley Field...
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XM
I heard that Dylan hour about baseball. A lot of it was 'fairly' recent. There was a pretty cool song about Ozzie Smith.
Also, if you're against the national anthem being played before games, I'm sorry you were raised poorly.
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GBA, 9/11
The great irony of the rise in popularity of God Bless America following 9/11 was that The Star Spangled Banner already captured the appropriate patriotic sentiment: a country remaining strong through dark and dangerous hours.
We didn't need to invoke a stinking deity to bless us after that. The strength had been there all along (well, maybe not, given how fast we sold out our own American values).
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Mr. Pillhouse must not be a Chicagoan
At both Wrigley Field and US Cellular Field a/k/a "New Comiskey," Take Me Out is sung with enthusiasm by the 7th-inning stretch crowd. This is due to its being a a tribute to the late, great Harry Carey, who started the whole thing first for the Sox, then the Cubs, as his career path took him to both fields.
And of course at Wrigley there are "guest conductors" who sing the song with varying degrees of success. IMHO the worst was, of course, Ozzy Osbourne and the best was Kenny Rogers - you know, the singer, not the Tiger. (Detroiters - has he ever "done the stretch" at Tigers games?)
BTW...how about that classic "We're Talkin' Baseball?"
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A few replies
Topper: 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?
Sex sells. It was just a boy-girl song, with a baseball theme.
Diogenes00 Also, to "A Big Old Geek", O's fans don't extend the O during
"O, say can you see...", they do it near the end of the song, at "O say, does that...".
At Cal, they yell "blue!" over the word "red" in "and the rockets red glare."
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home of the
I've always assumed that in Atlanta they finish the anthem "and the home of the Braves," but I've never had the opportunity to attend a game there so someone will have to let me know.
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Tessie
is not a baseball song. It just happened to be sung a lot at baseball games.
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Modern Baseball Songs
Its true that there aren’t a lot of modern baseball songs. I can think of songs by Bob Dylan, Kenny Rogers, John Fogerty, Peter Paul and Marry, and Bruce Springsteen, but none of these folks are exactly spring-chickens.
Wilco and Billy Bragg covered a baseball song by Woodie Guthrie on the “Mermaid Avenue II” disc called “Joe DiMaggio Done it Again,” but that hardly counts.
I guess I’ll have to settle for the Beastie Boys song “Sure Shot” which declared: “I’ve got mad hits like I was Rod Carew.”
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More Beasties
In "Hey Ladies" the Beasties also rap
"I've got more hits than Sadaharu Oh"
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Win It For The Fans!
The fad continues with baseballs best fan-rally "Win It For The Fans!" - it's the 'Take Me Out To The Ballgame' of the new millennium - and it's gaining in popularity. Check out www.myspace.com/winitforthefans and winitforthefans.com - great piece by the way, very enjoyable.