HIT MEN Authors, from left, Strasberg, Thompson and Wiles should really be on the lookout for foul balls.
Authors Andy Strasberg, Bob Thompson and Tim Wiles are hoping to convince you that “Take Me Out to the Ball Game” is Baseball’s Greatest Hit —bigger than any of Pete Rose’s record 4,256 base hits or anything that came from the wood of Babe Ruth. In the trio’s 208 pages on the 100-year-old John Norworth and Albert Von Tilzer anthem, fans learn all about the song’s storied history and Chicago connection. We sat down with Peoria native (and lifelong Cubs sufferer) Wiles, who holds a post at baseball’s Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, to discuss his campaign to get the whole song sung at Wrigley.
Time Out Chicago: So it’s been 100 years since “Take Me Out to the Ball Game” was written, and 100 years since the Cubs last won a World Series; how the hell do we break this curse?
Tim Wiles: Pitching [Laughs]. Actually, I think the Cubs have a real good shot this year. I think maybe that anniversary will dovetail nicely with the 100th anniversary of the Cubs not winning a World Series because both are wonderful things, but maybe the “Take Me Out to the Ball Game” can be sort of the lighter fare, or almost the comic relief that reminds people that we are going to win this thing in 2008, but if we don’t, we kind of win by being who we are. Sometimes sports might be about bigger things than winning. And Cub fans are the perfect example of that.
TOC: Did you find anything about a curse between the song and the team?
Tim Wiles: Well, we didn’t find anything, but others have suggested that Merkle’s “Boner Play” that was doped out by Johnny Evers, basically was, uh, I have to be careful with how far I go with it, some have suggested that Johnny Evers’ um, “cleverness” in exploiting the rules as he did, was not really fair. Some other commentators have suggested that that’s why we haven’t won the World Series since 1908, because we kind of stole that one. There’s a little logical inconsistency in there in that we stole the pennant; we didn’t steal the World Series. We won that. If it were a curse, perhaps that would have taken effect in the first week.
TOC: Was it tough to get this much material out of such an innocuous song?
Tim Wiles: We get into so many different subjects: the movie industry, the sheet-music industry, the two movies that have been made based on “Take Me Out to the Ball Game” in 1910 and 1949, the over 500 people who have recorded the song. What I think is the biggest stunner is that most baseball fans of today are probably my age or younger, 43, and most of them, because of Harry Caray and [former White Sox owner] Bill Veeck, assume that we’ve always sung “Take Me Out to the Ball Game” during the 7th-inning stretch. But really, it just dates back to the White Sox in 1976.
TOC: What was Harry Caray’s role in making the song so popular?
Tim Wiles: It’s in Chicago where the match catches fire; it goes into hyperspeed. It happens at Comiskey, 1976. And the story is that Harry liked to sing the song in the booth, and the couple rows of fans right below him would hear him singing it to himself. Bill [Veeck] asked Harry if he would sing it into a mike, and Harry wanted nothing to do with that. Then Bill and Mike Veeck said, “We have secretly taped you, and we’re just going to play the tape, and you’ll be singing anyway, so you might as well do it live.” So Harry said, OK, I’ll go ahead and do this.
Of course it caught on with the White Sox. Then eight years later, in 1982, he goes up the road to Wrigley, and they’ve got the national cable deal. And all of a sudden everybody around the country, major- and minor-[league], is doing “Take Me Out to the Ball Game.” The average baseball fan today thinks that it’s happened at every ball game since 1908, which is a natural assumption. To us, it’s a big surprise that it’s really as late as 1976 that this gets cemented into the ritual of the 7th-inning stretch.
TOC: Who would you bring in to sing the 7th-inning stretch at Wrigley?
Tim Wiles: Well, one more time, of course, would be Harry. I guess my dream ticket is I would like to see, just once, the entire song be sung at Wrigley Field, so that people would know that there are two verses to the song and that the song is sung from the point of view of a woman. That’s my agenda…just as a curiosity and an educational piece.
Click here to view the complete lyrics to “Take Me Out to the Ball Game” Baseball’s Greatest Hit is out Tuesday 2.
Here are the complete lyrics to "Take Me Out To The Ball Game."
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:"
Take me out to the ball game,
Take me out with the crowd;
Buy me some peanuts and Cracker Jack,
I don't care if I never get back.
Let me root, root, root for the home team,
If they don't win, it's a shame.
For it's one, two, three strikes, you're out,
At the old ball game.
Katie Casey saw all the games,
Knew the players by their first names.
Told the umpire he was wrong,
All along,
Good and strong.
When the score was just two to two,
Katie Casey knew what to do,
Just to cheer up the boys she knew,
She made the gang sing this song:
Take me out to the ball game,
Take me out with the crowd;
Buy me some peanuts and Cracker Jack,
I don't care if I never get back.
Let me root, root, root for the home team,
If they don't win, it's a shame.
For it's one, two, three strikes, you're out,
At the old ball game.