A Summer Classic

"Take Me Out to the Ball Game is named a Towering Song by the Songwriters Hall of Fame on its 100th Anniversary

Lyricist Jack Norworth (1879 – 1959) and composer Albert Von Tilzer (1878 -- 1956) were two Tin Pan Alley pros who, one hundred years ago, set their hands to writing a baseball song in waltz time – the title was "Take Me Out to the Ball Game," and it has become one of the most beloved and performed of all American songs. On June 19th, the Songwriters Hall of Fame honored it with its Towering Song Award. Now in the public domain, three different publishers represented the original version of the song, over the years: York Music, Broadway Music and Jerry VogelMusic. Norworth and Von Tilzer were far frombeing baseball fans. It is said, in fact, that neither had ever attended a professional baseball game before the song was written.

Many years after the song was written, Norworth claimed that he was inspired to write the lyric on a Manhattan elevated train after spotting an ad for a game to be played that day at the Polo Grounds. Norworth and Von Tilzer's creation was an almost immediate smash, selling millions of recordings, piano rolls and sheet music copies, spending seven weeks at the top of the 1908 charts. Jack Norworth, himself, is believed to have been the first to perform "Take Me Out to the Ball Game," at a theater called the Amphion in Brooklyn. The most popular of many early recordings was by the superstar Haydn Quartet on the Victor label. Since then, the song has been waxed by hundreds of artists, from the Boston Pops to Jimmy Buffett, from Donald Duck to Dr. John to Gordon McRae to Mandy Patinkin (in Yiddish!). There have been at least 160 copyrighted arrangements of "Take Me Out to the Ball Game" and it has been used in over 1200movies and television programs. In 1949, a Technicolor MGM musical was made called Take Me Out to the Ball Game, starring Frank Sinatra and Gene Kelly as singing and dancing ballplayers.

Curiously, the tradition of singing the song at nearly every Major League game is of fairly recent vintage. Legendary baseball announcer Harry Caray sang the song over the public address system at a 1976 Chicago White Sox game during the seventh inning stretch, joined by the fans. Today, almost all Major League games feature the playing and singing of the song.

In conjunction with the song's Centennial, the U.S. Postal Service will be issuing a commemorative "Take Me Out to the Ball Game" stamp this summer, and a coffee table book – Baseball's Greatest Hit: The Story of "Take Me Out to the Ball Game by Andy Strasberg, Bob Thompson and Tim Wiles --documenting the song's history and place in the nation's cultural life, has been released by Hal Leonard Books. Familiarity with "Take Me Out to the Ball Game" has become part of the DNA of what it means to grow up as an American, a fact recently acknowledged by the Songwriters Hall of Fame as it recognized the tune with its Towering Song Award on June 19th.

In Baseball's Greatest Hit, many little-known facts about one of America's most famous songs are brought to light. Among them is the connection between "Take Me Out to the Ball Game" and the origin of The ASCAP Foundation. In 1975, it was a bequest from Amy Swor Norworth, the widow of lyricist Jack Norworth, that funded the initial programof what was to become The ASCAP Foundation – the Grants to Young Composers (now known as the Morton Gould Young Composers Awards). The funding was from royalties generated by the Norworth's song catalogue, including "Take Me Out to the Ball Game" and "Shine on Harvest Moon." In other words, Norworth's hit made possible the ever-expanding ASCAP Foundation, which supports music education and talent development in a broad range of musical genres -- a major league legacy for a one hundred year-old song!

- Jim Steinblatt