Abstract
Chances are good that if you ask your students to name a song associated with a baseball game, in addition to the national anthem, they will say, “Take Me Out to the Ball Game.”
Chances are also good that many of them will know the lyrics.
But they probably will not know that the familiar lyrics were actually the song’s refrain and that the complete song began with the following verse: Katie Casey was baseball mad Had the fever and had it bad. Just to root for the home town crew, Ev’ry sou Katie blew. On a Saturday, her young beau Called to see if she’d like to go To see a show, but Miss Kate said, “No, I’ll tell you what you can do.”
Yes, “Take me out to the ball game . . .” came next. The song, written by Tin Pan Alley lyricist Jack Norworth in 1908 with music composed by Albert Von Tilzer, was about “baseball-mad” Katie Casey urging her beau to take her to the ball game rather than a show.
The original sheet music, published by the New York Music Co. of New York, featured in this article, is available online from the Library of Congress at www.loc.gov/item/ihas.200033481/. It is also included in the Baseball Americana exhibition on the Library of Congress website at www.loc.gov/exhibitions/baseball-americana/about-this-exhibition/.
The song was also featured in a series of Library of Congress blog posts, including the following:
“Baseball Americana: Root, Root, Root’s Debut,” by Wendi Maloney, describes an original 1908 Edison cylinder containing the first recording of the song, a rendition performed by Edward Meeker. Learn more at http://blogs.loc.gov/loc/2018/06/baseball-americana-root-root-roots-debut/.
In the post “Baseball Americana: Baseball’s Greatest Hits,” Mark Hartsell reminds us that no sport has inspired as much music as baseball: pop songs and polkas, quicksteps and two-steps, mambos and marches, waltzes, foxtrots, rags, quadrilles, schottisches, cantatas, and even operas have been written in celebration of America’s game. See http://blogs.loc.gov/loc/2018/05/baseball-americana-baseballs-greatest-hits/.
“Baseball, Music, and Suffrage? Exploring the Music of the ‘National Pastime,’” by Danna Bell, at https://blogs.loc.gov/teachers/2017/03/baseball-music-and-suffrage-exploring-the-music-of-the-national-pastime/, highlights other songs that feature women and their affinity for the game.
“Take Me Out to the Ball Game” is one of 400 titles included in a bibliography of published baseball music and songs in the Collections of the Music Division at the Library of Congress, available at www.loc.gov/rr/perform/baseballbib.html.
Finally, it is one of nearly 150 pieces of sheet music that reference baseball from the late nineteenth century to the early twentieth century included in a special baseball sheet music collection on the Library’s website at www.loc.gov/collections/baseball-sheet-music/about-this-collection/.
Enjoy exploring!
Footnotes
Lee Ann Potter is the Director of the Learning and Innovation Office at the Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. She can be contacted at