Americana: "Take Me Out to the Ball Game"
Harry Caray probably did more to associate Take Me Out to the Ball Game with the 7th-inning stretch than anyone. Uploaded by cache.boston.com.
Here you have the unofficial song of baseball, written in 1908. Want a really strange bit of trivia? Neither the lyricist (vaudeville performer Jack Norworth) nor the composer (Albert Von Tilzer) had ever been to a baseball game when they wrote the song. And neither would go for at least two more decades.
Uploaded by joyhog.com.
Baseball pitcher Larry Anderson made a good point about the song. “In the seventh inning fans all get up and sing ‘Take Me Out to the Ball Game,’ and they’re already there. It’s really a stupid thing to say and I don’t know who made ’em sing it. Why would somebody that’s there get up and sing take me out to the ball game? The first person to do it must have been a moron.”
Well someone who wasn’t a moron, not that he was precisely a genius, either, was Harry Caray. The famous broadcaster for the Chicago Cubs, Caray probably did more to associate the singing of this song with the seventh-inning stretch than anyone. So, take it away, Harry!
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fo9fEADUqPs]