Take Me Out to the Ballgame
Jack Norworth co-wrote Take Me Out to the Ball Game with Albert Von Tilzer. This song is sung during the seventh-inning stretch at just about every Major League Baseball game (“Norworth”). This [song] is played at most professional baseball games in America during the Seventh-Inning Stretch, where fans stand up and stretch out before the home team hits in the seventh inning ("Take Me Out To The Ballgame by Nora Bayes”). The song quickly became a huge hit, but not in ballparks. Instead, it was popularized at movie theaters, with patrons singing along as the song was played to the accompaniment of "lantern slides" while the reels were being changed (Stone).
|
http://images.wisegeek.com/baseball-player-hit-ball.jpg |
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QqXEIwR9tx0 |
"Take Me Out to the Ballgame" is believed to be one of the most performed songs in America, behind "Happy Birthday" and "The Star Spangled Banner” (Romero). The song is a cultural touchstone, with estimates that it has been used in more than 1,200 movies and television shows while being played publicly, somewhere, 365 days a year. More than 400 musicians have recorded "Take Me Out to the Ball Game," and more than 10 million copies have been sold in sheet music or records (Stone).
A famous performance of this song is by Mr. T for the Chicago Cubs (shown left). |