B is for Baseball

“Take me out to the ball game. Take me out with the crowd. Buy me some peanuts and Cracker Jacks. I don’t care if I ever get back. Let me root, root root for the home team. If they don’t win, it’s a shame. For its one, two, three strikes you're out at the old ball game.”

What has become the anthem for the 7th inning stretch at North American baseball games is a 1908 Tin Pan Alley song. Did you know that the authors of the song had never been to a game before they wrote it?

While riding on a subway train in New York City, Jack Norworth was inspired by a sign that he saw advertising a baseball game that was taking place at the Polo Grounds, a three-field sports complex in Manhattan. Built in 1890, it was also where the 1913 World Series between the New York Giants and the Philadelphia Athletics was played.

And did you know that the song is actually about a girl being asked out on a date? She will only accept if he takes her to a baseball game.

Baseball becomes our summer life. Both of the kids play on a school team and a summer traveling team, so we are busy moving them to practices and games all over the Metro Area.

We tell the kids that playing on these teams is a commitment. But it’s not only a commitment for them, it’s a commitment for us. Not only to make sure they get to the game on time, but to also make sure they are staying engaged in the team and the game they love.