SUMMERTIME MEANS BASEBALL!
Warm summer weather means it’s time for the American National Game. Ballparks fill around the United States and young and old, boys and girls, men and women gather to watch duels between the home teams and the visitors. After the visitors have been retired during the “top of the seventh”, the crowd stands, stretches, and sings the spirited song, “Take Me Out To The Ball Game”. This is an important baseball tradition.
TAKE ME OUT TO THE BALL GAME
By Jack Norworth, 1908
Katie Casey was baseball mad
Had a fever and had it bad,
Just to root for the hometown crew
Every sou [French coin] – Katie blew.
On a Saturday, her young beau
Called to see if she’d like to go
To see a show but Miss Kate said no.
I’ll tell you what you can do ...
Take me out to the ball game
Take me out with the crowd.
Buy me some peanuts and Cracker Jack
I don’t care if I never get back.
Let me root, root, root for the home team
If they don’t win it’s a shame,
For it’s one, two, three strikes you’re out
At the old ball game.
Jack Norworth had never been to a baseball game when he wrote the lyrics to “Take Me Out To The Ball Game”. The seldom-sung first verse describes ardent baseball fan Katie Casey’s passion for the hometown team and ends with her response to her boyfriend’s invitation to a show...
Many baseball fans assume that the singing of the song during the seventh-inning stretch is a tradition dating back to the beginning of baseball, or at least back to 1908 when Mr. Norworth wrote the song along with his music-writing partner, Albert Von Tilzer.
Actually, the seventh-inning stretch was first described in 1869. A baseball player wrote to a friend: “The spectators all arise between halves of the seventh inning, extend their legs and arms and sometimes walk about. In so doing, they enjoy the relief afforded by relaxation from a long posture on hard benches.” However, the tradition of the seventh-inning stretch didn’t really catch on until the 1910s.
The singing of “Take Me Out To The Ball Game” during the seventh-inning stretch is a fairly recent addition to the ritual. In 1941 the Chicago Cubs installed the first big league ballpark organ and popular songs were played between innings, including Katie Casey’s musical request made to her boyfriend. The custom of singing “Take Me Out To The Ball Game” during the stretch began to catch on at ballparks around the country during the 1970s.
[Adapted from Baseball As America, National Geographic Books, 2002]
*From painting by Albert Dorne based on Ernest Lawrence Thayer’s poem, Casey At The Bat”.