Stamps in the News / By Syd Kronish
Baseball’s song marks its 100th anniversary
Updated: 05/04/08 6:47 AM
Baseball is America’s pastime. And it’s the only sport with its own theme song.
The melodic tune widely recognized from coast to coast, “Take Me Out to the Ball Game,” is celebrating its 100th anniversary this year. The U. S. Postal Service joins the commemoration with a new 42-cent stamp featuring a trading card showing a baseball scene of the 1880’s era.
Trading cards, as many sports enthusiasts know, are 2z by 3z inch items promoting a product with a player or a game displayed. Youngsters saved these baseball cards as souvenirs and built a collection.
As for the song, it was born on a New York City train in the summer of 1908, when passenger Jack Norworth (1879-1957), an actor, singer and songwriter who had never attended a major league game, saw a sign about an upcoming game at the Polo Grounds. Suddenly inspired, he took out a piece of paper and began dashing off lines about a fictional fan who was baseball mad, shouting, “Take me out to the ball game. Take me out with the crowd.”
Norworth took his lyrics to composer Albert Von Tilzer (1878-1956), who had also never been to a major league game. Von Tilzer set the words to music and it was published the same year.
“Take Me Out to the Ball Game” caught on with baseball fans and became a favorite of ballpark organists across the country. The song has been heard in several popular movies, including “A Night at the Opera” with the Marx Brothers.
The original handwritten lyrics of Norworth and Von Tilzer’s now reside among the treasured collections of the National Baseball Hall of Fame at Cooperstown, N. Y.
As for he game, baseball historian Ken Burns said, “Baseball is played everywhere; in parks and playgrounds and prison yards, in back alleys and farmer’s fields, by small children and old men, by raw amateurs and millionaire professionals. It is a leisurely game that demands blinding speed, and the only one in which the defense has the ball.”
The Postal Service has honored the game of baseball on several previous stamps. The first was issued in 1940 showing the game played in the late 19th century. In 1998 the Postal Service paid tribute to the first World Series, played in 1903.
In 2000, a 20-stamp set called “Legends of Baseball’s All 20th Century Team” was released. Famous faces from Babe Ruth to Jackie Robinson were seen. In between were 18 Hall of Famers.
So, let’s root root for the home team and have some fun.
