April 5, 2004
HMMMMMM, CRACKER JACK...:
The odd origins of that seventh-inning symphony (Phil Elderkin, 4/02/04, CS Monitor)
At most Major League ballparks, "Take Me Out to the Ball Game" has been played and sung by fans almost as often as "The Star-Spangled Banner."Yet Jack Norworth, the Broadway headliner who wrote the lyrics in 1908, knew as much about balls and strikes at the time as a rookie kitchen boy knows about crêpes suzette.
Ordinarily, Norworth's "hits" were doubles, written with Nora Bayes. Norworth and Bayes were probably Broadway's most popular husband-and-wife song-and-dance team of the era. Only "Shine On Harvest Moon," which Norworth co-wrote and later sang as a headliner in the Ziegfeld Follies, has generated the same kind of staying power.
Interviewed in 1958 on the 50th anniversary of when "Take Me Out to the Ball Game" was first performed, Norworth's version of how he happened to write the song sounds like a fairy tale.
Rushing to catch a crowded New York subway, Norworth was jostled enough to lose the newspaper he had tucked under his arm. Without anything to read, Jack began to scan the poster-size ads in the subway car.
Norworth's gaze stopped when he read: "Baseball Today - Giants at the Polo Grounds." Thirty minutes later, Norworth had written the words to "Take Me Out to the Ball Game" on an old envelope.
The lead-in to Norworth's lyrics, which are never heard today, concern an attractive young lady named Katie (later changed to Nelly) Casey whose new boyfriend wants to make an impression by taking her to a top Broadway musical. But the young man quickly discovers that his girlfriend much prefers the velvet geometry of the baseball diamond. "Take me out to the ball game," she insists.
A talented friend of Norworth's, Albert Von Tilzer, composed the music. Once Norworth made it part of his Broadway act, theatergoers couldn't stop humming it.
Posted by Orrin Judd at April 5, 2004 8:58 AM
Last time I visited the US a chap in a Boston bar gave me a ticket to watch the Red Sox play the Houston Astros.
It was my first baseball game so I was completely unprepared for the mass singalong in the 7th innings, and was taken by surprise when everyone around me stood up to belt out 'Take me out to the ball game...'
Not wanting to seem out of place or appear a miserable party-pooper, I dutifully stood up and mumbled pathetically along, like the politician attempting to join in with hymns to which he doesn't know the words.
Once the initial embarrassment had gone away, I felt a warm glow of satisfaction in the knowledge that the British don't have a complete monopoly on the daft traditions and pastimes that make life worth living.
Posted by: Brit at April 5, 2004 10:27 AMBrit:
Ever seen the episode of Cracker with the psychotic Liverpool fan? I couldn't get the chant out of my head for months.
Posted by: oj at April 5, 2004 12:07 PMFunny that you should mention Liverpool fans, since I am one myself, though hopefully less psychotic than Robert Carlyle
The odd thing about that episode (which was brilliant), was that he was singing that "L-I-V" etc to the wrong tune.
He was singing it to the "Banana Splitz" theme, whereas the Liverpool Kop End usually sing it to the tune of "Jesus Christ Superstar".
I've no idea why. Or indeed, why it bothered me, but it did.
Posted by: Brit at April 5, 2004 12:13 PMI read that Coltrane had agreed to do one more, have they shown it there yet?
Posted by: oj at April 5, 2004 12:20 PM"Take Me Out to the Ballgame" is already my 6 week old son's favorite song.
Posted by: Foos at April 5, 2004 12:29 PMIt was our boy's too. That and Son of a Preacher Man.
Posted by: oj at April 5, 2004 12:34 PMOJ
I haven't seen a new Cracker in years, but the writer Jimmy McGovern (a Scouser himself) did another excellent drama based on the Hillsborough disaster (simply called, as I remember, 'Hillsborough') a few years ago. Powerful stuff.
Posted by: Brit at April 5, 2004 12:54 PMYou may want to check out the classic movie "Shine On, Harvest Moon" starring Dennis Morgan as Jack Norworth and Ann Sheridan as Nora Bayes:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0037273/
Posted by: Joe at April 5, 2004 4:38 PM