Singing at the Ball Game

After the first half of the seventh inning of every baseball game (the “stretch”) from the college level up, fans stand up and sing Take Me Out to the Ball Game. Some find it peculiar that we only sing this song when we’re already at a ballgame, still nearly everyone in the park sings it.

Baseball is nothing if not traditional.

People who wouldn’t be caught dead singing anywhere else in public sing it. People who can’t sing sing it. People who sing well sing it loudly to show off, but we all sing it.

Take Me Out to the Ball Game was written by Jack Norworth in 1908. He also wrote Shine On, Harvest Moon. He wrote an updated version in 1927, but the plot is the same. A guy asks Katie out on a date but she'll only go if he takes her to a ball game. (My kinda gal.)

The part we actually sing at the stretch is the chorus:

Nelly Kelly love 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,
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."

Nelly Kelly was sure some fan,
She would root just like any man,
Told the umpire he was wrong,
All along, good and strong.
When the score was just two to two,
Nelly Kelly 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."

There are two common modifications of the lyrics at the ballpark. First, a small part of the crowd always wants to change “Let me root, root, root for the home team” to “root for the Tar Heels” or “root for the Wildcats”. And second, no one ever sings “cracker jack”. They always make it plural.

About half the crowd sings “ever get back” instead of “never get back”, but that’s a nit.

UNC’s Boshamer Stadium has a cool additional tradition. After every game, as the fans are leaving the stadium, they play James Taylor’s Carolina In My Mind on the PA system.

If you want to sing at a ball game at any time other than these two, that's cool. 

But please don't sit near me.

Last Night's Loss Sucked

I was pretty disappointed with the outcome of our game last night. My college classmates will assume I’m talking about UK’s loss to Vanderbilt in the SEC basketball tournament, but I was at a baseball game.

I did follow the UK game on Twitter from the stands, but it wasn’t televised here and I doubt if I would’ve stayed home to watch it if it had been. I kinda lost my appetite for college basketball this season when I saw the photos of Nerlens Noel’s knee dangling 90° in an unnatural direction. (And, no, I want give you a link to it.)

It’s a little like finding a dead bug in your chili, I suppose. Not that I ever have, mind you. But I imagine it would take some time to face a bowl of chili again and I think I’m gonna spend this spring watching baseball until I get my appetite for hardwood back.

It’s just not possible to have a perfect season in college baseball — to my knowledge it’s never been done in NCAA Division I baseball — but after starting the season with 16 straight wins as UNC has done, that first loss is still a shock to a fella’s system.

Carolina fell to Miami last night 4-1 at Boshamer Stadium in Chapel Hill and is now 16-1 on the season. Second game of the series is tomorrow evening.

I made it to the game early enough to see batting practice, but that was a mixed blessing. It was cold and getting there early also meant nearly four hours in the stands instead of three, with a half-hour walk home in the dark afterwards.

OK, cold-ish. It was 60° at game time and it fell to 50° by the time I left the stadium, but a mean breeze blew in from center field and made it feel colder. And we are, after all, Southerners with low tolerance for winter to begin with.

I found a concession stand selling coffee, a rare occurrence at the Bosh, and decided to buy a cup to stay warm. The young lady told me to be careful because the coffee was extremely hot.

It wasn’t.

I paid four bucks for a cup of joe. I’m not talking about a mocha frappacino double pump latte espresso dopio. I’m talking four bucks for a plain, tepid cup of coffee.

Capitalism loves nothing more than a captive audience.

It wasn’t a terribly exciting game. Carolina had 7 hits to Miami’s 9, but only a few were hit hard. A lot of bloopers, seeing-eye singles and two Carolina errors. Miami scored once on a blooper that fell a foot behind the first baseman’s glove and about an eighth inch inside the foul line.

One of those errors was charged to the second baseman. The pitcher got a glove on a line drive and knocked it down. It slowly dribbled out toward second. The second baseman made a huge effort to get to the ball but his throw dragged the first baseman off the bag. That’s a routine play and for his efforts he gets an E? That’s just wrong.

Still, Miami was able to play enough small ball to get ahead and then to stay ahead with some excellent pitching. It was a workman-like victory.

By 9:00, a crowd of 1,000 had dwindled down to a couple of hundred. Much of the crowd was following the Duke-Maryland basketball game and you could feel the excitement from the baseball crowd when the Terps won.  Sometimes around here it feels like a Duke loss is better than a Carolina win.

By 9:30 you knew who the real baseball fans were. Carolina played Florida State in the SEC basketball tournament at 9:30 and, this being Carolina, most of the remaining fans had drifted off home to their TV sets. It didn’t help that UNC squandered a couple of big hits and then a bottom of the ninth comeback from that 4-1 lead looked doubtful.

Still, there were a hundred or so fans that refused to leave until Brian Holbertson grounded out to Miami’s first baseman to end the game.

It’s amazing how much hope you can put into that final out.