Take Me Out to the Ball Game: OCTOBER 6, 1934
/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/tgam/BXQXNYL4GFCZRFAZ3QWLJTDCLU.jpg) |
| Sheet music for ‘Take Me Out to the Ball Game’, Albert Von Tilzer, composer; Jack Norworth, lyricist (New York: The New York Music Co., c. 1908). LIBRARY OF CONGRESS |
| Take Me Out to the Ball Game debuts at Major League Baseball game |
| In a salute to snacks and America’s national pastime, on a Saturday at St. Louis’s Sportsman’s Park on this day in 1934, Take Me Out to the Ball Game was played before the fourth game of the World Series between the Detroit Tigers and the hometown Cardinals. The Tin Pan Alley number with a slow-rolling melody and lyrics about a day at the ballpark was a hit record in 1908, and although the sing-along is routinely heard today at baseball games during 7th-inning intermissions, the playing of it by the Cardinals’ band 87 years ago marked its first usage at a Major League contest. The song might have been the best part of the afternoon for Cardinals fans. Star St. Louis pitcher Dizzy Dean was being used as a pinch-runner when he was knocked out cold by a thrown ball. His teammate and brother Paul Dean took him out of the ball game, carrying him to the clubhouse fireman’s style. And while the Cardinal fans undoubtedly did “root, root, root for the home team,” their boys were routed 10-4. It really was a shame. Brad Wheeler |
