The unique message of “Take Me Out to the Ball Game” was significant enough for Cohan himself to introduce his own baseball song, “Take Your Girl to the Ball Game.” While both the Cohan and Norworth songs were advertised in the same May 2, 1908, issue of Variety, Cohan’s was registered for copyright on May 8, six days after “Take Me Out to the Ball Game.” Lantern slides for Cohan’s song followed one month after those of “Take Me Out to the Ball Game.” They were shot (also by DeWitt C. Wheeler) at the American League ballpark in upper Manhattan.[30] The trade publications advertised both songs as sensational hits, and in the case of Cohan’s song, the “novelty summer waltz song and a home run hit.” Not only were the titles nearly identical, there was an unmistakable similarity in the opening phrases of both choruses. Although the trade publications remarked on the peculiar similarities of the two song titles, neither publisher seemed to have made an issue over the similarity of the refrains.[31] In his later interviews, Norworth was quick to point out that he knew he had the better song, but there is no evidence that he ever challenged the powerful “Yankee Doodle Boy.” The two songs could not have been more different in tone, message, and prosody. Cohan’s refrain is passive, like a lovely afternoon at the ballpark, whereas “Take Me Out to the Ball Game” has you on your feet with its opening octave jump. Norworth has no reservations about Katie Casey’s qualifications as a diehard and knowledgeable fan of the game, even leading the rooters in the song’s “infectious” chorus. Contrast that with Cohan’s opening verse, in which he advises the rooters around him that undignified behavior should be put aside so that an appropriate place might be made for a woman, who then could gently and lovingly be taught the rules of baseball when you “Take Your Girl to the Ball Game.”

Verse 1

Coney Island’s all right,

It’s a fine place at night,

But the place that’s the money to me,

Is the park where they play,

Classy ball every day,

Talk of sport,

It’s the big Jubilee!

At the shout of “Play Ball”

I’m just daffy that’s all,

As I sit with my queen like a king,

With her score card in hand,

Mamie looks more than grand,

To the rooters around me I sing:

Chorus

Take you girl to the ball game,

Any old afternoon.

That’s the spot to propose to Mame,

The spot for a sunshiny spoon.

Make a fan of your steady girl,

If you lose her I’ll take all the blame.

In the stand, It’s just grand,

As she squeezes your hand,

At the base ball game.

George M. Cohan, “Take Your Girl to the Ball Game.”

Though Cohan’s song is typical of the genre of songs that would follow, he did two important things that allowed the message of “Take Me Out to the Ball Game” to go forward. He publicly approved the suffrage activities of Trixie Friganza (represented in the fictional Katie Casey, who independently chooses to go to a ballgame instead of a show). And, he published his own song, whose title is the necessary signifier of approval that gives currency and validation to Norworth’s message of enfranchisement. Taking your girl to a ballgame had now become fashionable.

As a result, both songs helped unleash a great swath of copycat songs from publishing houses across New York’s Tin Pan Alley and beyond, many of them about taking your girl to a ballgame, and many (like those of Norworth and Cohan) composed in a simple waltz meter of three-four.[32] One of these songs, “I’ve Been Making a Grand Stand Play for You,” offers the following opening lyric:

Way down front,

hand in hand,

In the baseball grandstand,

Is my girl and myself ev’ry day;

She’s a regular fan,

Like a regular man,

Know just what to do, what to say.

“I’ve Been Making a Grand Stand Play for You”

While these copycat songs certainly contributed to the positive message put in motion by “Take Me Out to the Ball Game,” they did not convey the same anthem of equality and empowerment offered by Katie Casey. Cohan uses the ballpark as a romanticized teachable moment for his girl’s benefit, who is presumed to know nothing about baseball. The message of these songs is to inculcate your best girl into the rituals of baseball as a male-oriented pursuit in which she could now participate if she just played along by a new set of rules where a home run, a hit, or a grandstand play were creating a new language of courtship, love, and romance.

“If they don’t win it’s a shame”

The message of “Take Me Out to the Ball Game” stands alone when set in relief against these easily forgotten songs. It is the only song that asserts the unique message that a woman’s presence and participation at the ballpark gives momentum towards a relationship of equality with those around her. That relationship is legitimized in the stands when (as told in the second verse) Katie Casey leads her fellow fans in the song’s final chorus. No other baseball song places a woman in a position of leadership, which more than fulfills her need and desire to be part of the franchise, which, in this case, was the rooting crowd.

“Take Me Out” song slide, 1908

Thus the question often asked by many baseball fans can now be answered: “Why do we sing ‘Take Me Out to the Ball Game’ when we are already at the game?” The answer is hidden in plain sight in the song’s second verse that we never sing. The very first time that “Take Me Out to the Ball Game” was ever sung at the ballpark was when Katie Casey sang it. What was once fiction has, over time, become reality. Katie Casey by her actions establishes both the progressive momentum of participation for the “new woman” and, at the same time, effectively sets the song on its future course of greatness. Someday a woman will indeed be able to lead the crowd in singing “Take Me Out to the Ball Game” at the ballpark, and the momentum to achieve that had just been put in place.

The momentum to sustain Katie Casey’s victory in the grandstand was generated by continued performances of the song — not at the ballpark or in movie houses or vaudeville theaters but in millions of parlors across the country. As was the continued custom, mothers taught music to their children. In the process they became eager consumers of sheet music, sharing the delights of songs such as “Take Me Out to the Ball Game” around the family piano.[33] These re-creations of the ballpark experience at home singalongs and other social gatherings sustained interest in the song’s “jolly, infectious” chorus and its resonant message. Over time and across generations, “Take Me Out to the Ball Game” would fulfill its message of inclusive empowerment, ensuring its continued popularity and eventual crowning as baseball’s popular anthem.

“For it’s one, two, three strikes you’re out”

Jack Norworth himself helped to keep his song in proper step with the changing times. Women had won the right to vote in 1920, and in 1927 Norworth revised the verses of “Take Me Out to the Ball Game.” He modernized the song’s language and changed Katie Casey’s name to Nelly Kelly.[34]

Verse 1

Nelly Kelly loved baseball games,

Knew the players, knew all their names,

You could see her there ev’ry day,

Shout “Hurray” when they’d play.

Her boy friend by the name of Joe,

Said “To Coney Isle, dear, let’s go,”

Then Nelly started to fret and pout,

And to him I heard her shout.

“Take Me Out to the Ball Game” had another reason to gain a new lease on life: 1927 was the year that Babe Ruth hit 60 home runs. With baseball’s popularity soaring, perhaps Norworth was hoping that younger audiences eager for baseball would make an old song new again. More likely, with a fresh copyright on his baseball song, Norworth was rooting for his royalty checks to continue for at least another half-century.

Sometime after the 1949 release of the movie “Take Me Out to the Ball Game,” when electronic organs were being introduced into many ballparks, the song gradually found its own opportunities for integration into the baseball experience. Throughout the 1950s and ’60s, the song’s chorus was catching on with organists, who began playing it with some regularity as part of the pregame entertainment.[35] Over time, the omission of the opening verse eliminated the song’s critical narrative from our collective memory.

By the late 1960s and early ’70s, many organists gave the song an increased presence at the ballpark; and while Norworth certainly envisioned hundreds of people singing the song during intermissions in theaters and movie houses, he could not possibly have imagined that his simple chorus of “root, root, root for the home team” would be given additional momentum by someone not in the theatrical world, but rather a baseball impresario who had a flair for the ridiculous and whose simple idea would propel Norworth’s tune into baseball immortality.[36]

U.S. centennial postal stamp, 2008

Chicago White Sox owner Bill Veeck, like his father before him, always looked for opportunities to inject some crowd-pleasing novelty entertainment into his games. In 1977, after hearing White Sox broadcaster Harry Caray singing the tune badly to himself in the broadcast booth as organist Nancy Faust played the song, Veeck persuaded Caray to turn on the microphone and lead the crowd in singing the chorus of “Take Me Out to the Ball Game” during the seventh-inning stretch of every game.[37] That grand experiment was not only a hit, a home run, and a grandstand play with the fans; it has become iconic, sung today in all major league ballparks across the country during the game’s customary intermission. The song’s chorus, originally resonant for Katie Casey, now resonates with the sustained message that baseball is for everyone, regardless of class, gender, or generation. This inclusiveness has allowed “Take Me Out to the Ball Game” to achieve a lasting and cherished position of popularity, alongside “Happy Birthday” and the “Star Spangled Banner.[38]

“At the old ball game”

When you can get away to the carefree atmosphere of the ballpark, the experience of singing “Take Me Out to the Ball Game” during the seventh-inning stretch creates a magic of participation and belonging as memorable as the ballgame itself. Jack Norworth’s “sensational base ball song” unites players and fans, young and old, male and female, who still seek that common bond and restless urge, like generations before them and the fictional Katie Casey, to be part of the rooting crowd. Knowing what we now know about “Take Me Out to the Ball Game,” imagine that tangible moment that Katie Casey must have felt back in 1908, walking into the ballpark for the first time, taking in the atmosphere and thinking to herself, “I don’t care if I never get back.”

Acknowledgment

This article was derived from an exhibit curated by George Boziwick at The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts celebrating the 100th anniversary of “Take Me Out to the Ball Game” in 2008. A paper version of this article was presented at the 2009 Symposium on Baseball and American Culture at the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum. A lecture/performance version of this article was presented by the Red Skies Music Ensemble in 2012 at The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts. George Boziwick would like to thank Jacqueline Z. Davis, the Dorothy and Louis B. Cullman Executive Director of The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, and staff member Tema Hecht. He also thanks Trudy Williams, co-founder of the Red Skies Music Ensemble for her contributions, and gives special thanks to Stephanie Doba.

Notes

1. Figure 1. Norworth, Jack and Albert von Tilzer. “Take Me Out to the Ball Game.” The York Publishing Co., 1908, first edition. Music Division, The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts.

2. Peiss, K. 1986. Cheap Amusements: Working Women and Leisure in Turn-of-the Century New York, p. 7.

3. Strasberg, A., B. Thompson, and T. Wiles. 2008. Baseball’s Greatest Hit: The Story of Take Me Out to the Ball Game, p. 19.

4. Rosenthal, H. 1958. “Take Me Out to the Ball Game Written on Subway in ’08,” The Sporting News: Mar. 16. Baseball and Music Clipping File, Music Division, The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts.

5. The New Phonogram, (Orange, New Jersey: The National Phonograph Company, vol. 5, no. 3, September, 1908). The Rodgers and Hammerstein Archives of Recorded Sound, The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts.

6. Strasberg, Thompson, and Wiles 2008, pp. 26–28.

7. According to Margaret Bergh (The Marnan Collection, Minneapolis), it is thought that actress Marie Murray (1882–1967) posed as Katie Casey for these lantern-slide photos in 1908. Pers. comm, Apr. 25, 2012.

8. Seymour, H., and D. Seymour. 1960. Baseball: The Early Years, p. 328. Ardell, J. 2005. Breaking Into Baseball: Women and the National Pastime, pp. 28–31.

9. Lardner, R. c. 1916. You Know Me Al: A Busher’s Letters, p. 37.

10. Lawyer Clarence Darrow reflected in his autobiography on the profound effect that baseball had on him as a child growing up in rural Ohio around 1868. He learned to play the game in his district school. Years later as a young law student teaching in a country school, Darrow would integrate sports into his daily curriculum. To the consternation of his parents, he lengthened both the recess period and the school day, to allow the children needed time for outdoor activities such as baseball in which he often participated. Darrow. C. 1996 (reprint). The Story of My Life, pp. 17, 28. Hanon. M. (n.d.) “Clarence Darrow: Timeline of His Life and Legal Career,” University of Minnesota Law Library Diss., pp. 4–5.

11. Howell. C. 1995. Northern Sandlots: A Social History of Maritime Baseball, pp. 5, 102–103, 112.

12. The PSAL philosophy that exercise was vital for both sexes had growing support, and some, such as actress Mrs. Leslie Carter, strongly advocated that baseball, for its unique qualities as “a form of exercise and amusement combined,” should be made available to young women. Mrs. Leslie Carter, “Exercise — The Fountain of Youth,” Baseball Magazine 3.1, May 1909, pp. 21 23. Seymour, H., and D. Seymour. Baseball: The People’s Game, pp. 45–66. Lord. W. 1960. The Good Years: From 1900 to the First World War, pp. 87–90.

13. Wingate. G. 1908. “The Public Schools Athletic League,” Outing Magazine 52.

14. During the last two decades of the 19th century several World Series–type contests were played between the National League and the short-lived American Association (1884–1890). In 1894 Pittsburgh Pirates owner William C. Temple offered his “Temple Cup” to the winner of a seven-game series between the first- and second-place teams in the National League.

15. Thorn, J. 2011. Baseball in the Garden of Eden: The Secret History of the Early Game, pp. 273–296.

16. This was a common practice among music publishers. Each cover featured a picture of those who either sang or promoted the song. It also created opportunities for consumers to identify with a particular performer they may have seen in the theater or to simply collect the various covers of their favorite songs.

17. “Louise Dresser Declares Husband Will Endeavor to Obtain Divorce So He May Wed Trixie Friganza,” Washington Times: Oct. 23, 1907. “Louise Dresser Has Got Her Divorce,” The New York Times: June 15, 1908.

18. Whorf McGuiggan, A. 2009. Take Me Out to the Ball Game: The Story of the Sensational Base Ball Song, pp. 33–37. Jack Norworth Clipping File. Billy Rose Theatre Division, The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts. “Scully’s Scrapbook,” Variety: May 21, 1952. Trixie Friganza Clipping File, Billy Rose Theatre Division, The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts.

19. Nora Bayes and Jack Norworth: Together and Alone. Archeophone Records, 5007, 2004. Debus, A. 1957. “Celebrity Corner: The Records of Jack Norworth,” Hobbies, Sept. 1957, pp. 34–35. Baseball and Music Clipping File, Music Division, The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts.

20. “Three years ago, on June 28 [sic], 1908, he married dainty Nora Baues [sic] and thereupon severed his association with Mr. Von Tilzer, as one of his contract martial [sic] clauses runs to the effect that his wife was to write the music for all his future songs.” Undated newspaper clipping, Jack Norworth Clipping File. The Billy Rose Theatre Division, The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts.

21. These songs include “How Can They Tell That Oi’m Irish,” “Has Anybody Here Seen Kelly,” “When Old Bill Bailey Plays the Ukalele [sic],” “When Miss Patricia Salome Did Her Funny Little Oo-La-Pa-Lome.”

22. Lynch-Brennan. M. 2006. “Ubiquitous Bridget: Irish Immigrant Women in Domestic Service in America, 1840–1930,” Making the Irish American: History and Heritage of the Irish in the United States, ed. J. Lee and M. Casey, pp. 332–353. Diner, H. 1983. Erin’s Daughters in America: Irish Immigrant Women in the Nineteenth Century, pp. 66, 94.

23. “We will encourage her by substantial contributions to the cause, but no performer under our management can make stump speeches during a performance. We have arranged to have her address a meeting at the City Hall and have advertised it. Miss Stella Hammerstein, daughter of the impresario [Oscar Hammerstein] is associated with Miss Friganza in the planning of a [suffrage] campaign to be waged between now and Election Day.” “Miss Friganza a Suffragette: Miss Hammerstein to Help Actress in Campaign for Women’s Rights,” The New York Tribune: Oct. 15, 1908.

24. Library of Congress Performing Arts Encyclopedia: http://lcweb2.loc.gov/diglib/ihas/loc.natlib.ihas.200153239/default.html. Accessed Mar. 30, 2009.

25. Woodcock Tentler, L. 1979. Wage-Earning Women: Industrial Work and Family Life in the United States, 1900–1930, pp. 66–67.

26. Enstad, N. 1999. Ladies of Labor, Girls of Adventure: Working Women, Popular Culture, and Labor Politics at the Turn of the Twentieth Century, p. 153.

27. Lord 1960, pp. 254–268.

28. “Maxim Tells Women How They May Vote,” The New York Times: Mar. 25, 1908. “Hudson Maxim of smokeless powder fame told the members of the William Lloyd Garrison Equal Suffrage Association how to get woman suffrage without waste of noise…. ‘Make it fashionable,’ said Mr. Maxim. ‘It is the duty of every woman to try to make woman [sic] suffrage fashionable, and then victory will be assured.’”

29. New York Giants players Rube Marquard (with his wife Blossom Seeley) and first baseman Mike Donlin (who teamed up with his wife Mabel Hite) frequented the Broadway stage. Babe Ruth often worked Vaudeville making as much as $3,000 per week in the offseason. See: Seymour, H., and D. Seymour. 1971. Baseball: The Golden Age, pp. 392, 446. Other players included Charles Dooin, Joe Tinker, Johnny Kling, Christy Mathewson, Chief Meyers, Captain Adrian C. “Pop” Anson, Waite Hoyt, Ty Cobb, and Frank Frisch. See: Laurie, J. 1955. Vaudeville: From the Honky-Tonks to the Palace, pp. 124–128. See also: Photograph of George M. Cohan’s base ball team. Cohan, “C” picture file, The Billy Rose Theatre Division, The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts. See also: Ardell 2005, 33–34.

30. Hilltop Park or “the American League ballpark” was the home of the New York Highlanders. The Highlanders played in New York from 1903 until the start of the 1913 season when, no longer playing in Washington Heights, they moved to the Polo Grounds and officially changed the team name to the Yankees. See: Appel. M. 2012. Pinstripe Empire: The New York Yankees from Before the Babe to After the Boss, pp. 61–65.

31. Whorf McGuiggan 2009, 70–71.

32. “Come On Play Ball With Me Dearie,” words by Ed. Madden, music by Gus. Edwards. New York: Gus Edwards Music Pub. Co., 1909; “I Want to Go to the Ball Game,” words by C.P. McDonald, music by Al. W. Brown. New York: Victor Kremer Co., 1909; “Back to the Bleachers for Mine,” words by Harry Breen, music by Albert von Tilzer. New York: The York Music Co., 1910; “You’ve Made a Homerun With Me,” words by Thomas J. Gray, music by Edna Williams. New York: Jos. W. Stern & Co., 1911; “I’ve Been Making A Grand Stand Play For You,” words by Wm. Farmer, music by Jos. McCarthy. New York: Jerome H. Remick & Co., 1911; “That Marquard Glide,” words by Rube Marquard and Thos. J. Gray, music by Blossom Seeley and W. Ray Walker. New York: Jerome H. Remick & Co., 1912. Stuart B. Stone, “The Imp Interferes,” Baseball Magazine 2.2, December 1908, pp. 33–38. This is a story about matchmaking in the bleachers, where the girl gets the game’s star player.

33. Amateur home music-making was taking place as early as the 1820s and was particularly favored by those who were unable (or unwilling) to attend live concert or theater performances. It was believed by many “that music could be made more respectably, regularly, and easily in the privacy of one’s home, as a pleasant pastime among friends and family.” Cavicchi, D. 2011. Listening and Longing: Music Lovers in the Age of Barnum, p. 20.

34. Norworth, Jack, and Albert von Tilzer. “Take Me Out to the Ball Game.” (New York: Broadway Music Corp., 1600 Broadway, N.Y., 1927). On the cover: “Based upon ‘Take Me Out to the Ball Game,’ copr. MCMVIII, by York Music Co.” Music Division, The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts.

35. Rosenthal 1958. Rosenthal states that in 1958 the Yankees were playing “Take Me Out to the Ball Game” before every home game.

36. Strasberg, Thompson, and Wiles 2008, 40–45, 58, 62–65.

37. Veeck, B., with E. Linn. 2001 (reprint) Veeck — as in Wreck: The Autobiography of Bill Veeck, p. 387.

38. Strasberg, Thompson, and Wiles 2008, 10.