Ernie was the mastermind behind most of the playlist, and he has selected some of the most obscure selections you can imagine - from comic monologues to tribute songs, from country to classics, stretching from as long ago as 1903 to 1957. There are tunes celebrating the stars of old along with the obscurities - adding up to 22 selections in all.
As usual, we'll cover these in chronological order.
Cal Stewart - Uncle Josh Playing Base Ball
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| Cal Stewart as Uncle Josh |
The earliest piece comes from Cal Stewart, who visits the ball park in "Uncle Josh Playing Base Ball" from 1903. Actually Josh first goes to a football game and then on to the baseball field, where he joins the action with predictable consequences. Josh was a yuk-yuk-yuk hayseed character, and his routine is very much in the vein of his previous appearances here, when he encountered the big city department store and a cafeteria, except this one involves an angry goat.
Concert Band - Cubs on Parade
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| Tinker, Evers, Chance, and all the Cubbies |
The Chicago Cubs were the hottest thing in the major leagues from 1906-8, when they won two out of three World Series. They then hit a fallow period for the next 108 years. In 1908, a generically named Concert Band came out with a lively march called "Cubs on Parade," which we presume was in honor of the baseball team rather than denoting something zoological.
Weber and Fields - Base Ball
Joe Weber and Lew Fields were huge stars in vaudeville, but only worked together sporadically by the time Columbia recorded their "Base Ball" routine in 1916. Their "Mike and Meyer" characters spoke in German dialect, here with one explaining the game to the other. This routine features our first instance of "kill the umpire" and ends with a joke at the expense of the long-gone and not very successful St. Louis Browns.
"Babe" Himself - "Babe" Ruth's Home Run Story
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| The Babe |
In 1920 the biggest star in baseball was the Great Bambino, Babe Ruth, who had just moved over to the Yankees from the Red Sox and was busy setting home run records in both 1919 and 1920. This recorded monologue - "'Babe' Ruth's Home Run Story" - is a remarkably contrived and uninformative three minutes with the slugger detailing his triumphs in a laconic manner. Still, it's fascinating to hear his voice in his prime.
Les Brown and His Orchestra - Joltin' Joe DiMaggio
Let's jump ahead to 1941, where we're in a different world with Les Brown's swing band hymning the praises of a later Yankee - "Joltin' Joe DiMaggio." Singer Betty Bonney tells the story of the Clipper's 56-game hitting streak, which is still the record. Betty died recently, and her New York Times obituary gives the background of the song.
From this time forward, most records found it obligatory to bawl "strike one" etc., and "kill the umpire," along with the crack of hickory on horsehide (or is it horsehide on hickory?).
Ferko String Band - Babe (Dedicated to Babe Ruth)
Joe Ferko formed the Ferko String Band more than 100 years ago to perform in Philadelphia's Mummers Parade on New Year's Day. In the late 1940s, the Ferkos made a series of records for the local Palda label, including our next selection, which is my own favorite in this group. It is a loose and lusty reading of "Babe (Dedicated to Babe Ruth)" by Charles Tobias and Peter DeRose. I believe this was recorded in recognition of Ruth's 1948 death from cancer. It is a joyous sing-along celebration of his life, accompanied by a ensemble that sounds like it is part marching band and part stage band - which is what the Ferkos were.
Johnny Mercer - The First Baseball Game
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| Johnny Mercer |
A preacher delivering a sermon using baseball as a simile sounds like something that Johnny Mercer the songwriter would come up with, but it actually is a 1948 song by Don Raye and Gene de Paul called "The First Baseball Game" that Johnny the singer recorded for Capitol. Among the lyrics: "Ol’ Saint Pete was checkin’ errors / Also had charge of the gate / Salome sacrific’d Big John the Baptist who wound up ahead on the plate." Not sure what the lesson was, but the lyrics are terrific.
Count Basie and His Orchestra - Did You See Jackie Robinson Hit That Ball?
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| Jackie Robinson |
One of the great events in baseball history was in 1947 when Jackie Robinson broke the Major League's color line by joining the Brooklyn Dodgers. There was more than one song written to mark the occasion, the best-known being Buddy Johnson's "Did You See Jackie Robinson Hit That Ball?", here in Count Basie's 1949 recording. Ernie also uncovered a "Baseball Boogie" recorded in Robinson's honor by Brownie McGhee, but that 78 was quite noisy, so we opted for the better-known song.
Gene Kelly and Betty Garrett - Take Me Out to the Ball Game
There have been any number of films with a baseball theme; one notable example from the musical realm is Take Me Out to the Ball Game, which, with a title like that, just had to utilize Albert von Tilzer and Jack Norworth's 1908 classic "Take Me Out to the Ball Game." In the 1949 film, the song is allotted to Gene Kelly and Betty Garrett. Neither had a great voice, but they both radiated personality, so this is a fine record of perhaps the most famous baseball song of them all.
Michel Rosenberg - Getzel at a Baseball Game
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| Michel Rosenberg |
Baseball has appealed to all facets of society and is an example of sport bringing us together. In the late 1940s, Banner was a well-known Yiddish and Hebrew label whose best known artists were perhaps Molly Picon, Myron Cohen and the Barry (Bagelman) Sisters. On this side, Borscht Belt comedian Michel Rosenberg does his "Getzel at a Baseball Game" routine. It's in Yiddish, but he does throw in the occasional phrase in English, e.g., "Gimme blintzes!" and "It's gonna be some game!"
Fat Man Humphries - Doby at the Bat
The first player to break the color line in the American League, Cleveland's Larry Doby, also was honored in more than one song. An earlier post includes Freddie Mitchell's "Doby's Boogie." And today's collection features Fat Man Humphries' "Doby at the Bat," a rough-and-ready, small-label R&B toast to a great player. It dates from 1950.
Glenn Young Orchestra - Harry Caray Polka
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| Harry Caray in St. Louis |
Radio announcers were (and still are to an extent) the portals to baseball for avid fans who could not attend in person. They themselves became popular personalities. One of the most famous - and longest lasting - of this breed was Harry Caray, whose most notable assignments were for the St. Louis Cardinals, the Chicago White Sox and the Chicago Cubs. Harry was quite a promoter, so my guess is that the idea for this rollicking "Harry Caray Polka" from 1950 originated with the man himself. It features his catchphrases "It might be ... it could be ... it IS a home run!" and "Holy cow!"
Johnny Vadnal - The Baseball Polka
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| Johnny Vadnal |
Let's move on to another polka from the same year, this one from Johnny Vadnal, one of the leading lights of the very active Slovenian polka scene in Cleveland, whose best-known exponent was Frankie Yankovic. These ensembles tended to have a smooth sounding female trio offsetting the pronounced polka beat and decidedly choppy male vocals. Vadnal is choppier than most, at least in this "Baseball Polka," also from 1950.
Sugar Chile Robinson - The Bases Were Loaded
Baseball songs and stories have often adopted the pitcher-batter duel as a drama in miniature, starting with "Casey at the Bat." Here, juvenile boogie woogie pianist/singer Sugar Chile Robinson has it tougher than most, being called on a strikes by a pitch that beaned him - and that with the bases full. This drama can be found in a 1950 Rudy Toombs creation called "The Bases Were Loaded," which Robinson recorded for Capitol.
Helen Traubel - Take Me Out to the Ball Game
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| "Yo-ho-te home run!" |
Wagnerian soprano Helen Traubel was a wonderfully good sport who liked to sing popular songs, including this splendid 1950 record of "Take Me Out to the Ballgame," with Arthur Fiedler and orchestra. The performance is notable for including the seldom-heard - and very good - verse by composer Albert von Tilzer and lyricist Jack Norworth. The latter actually wrote two verses for the song - one in 1908 and a replacement in 1927. Traubel sings the latter. Here is an explanation for the alternative versions.
LeRoy Holmes and His Orchestra - Little League
Baseball for the young ones was only loosely organized when I was a kid - largely via the Little League and then high school teams. Now my 10-year-old grandson is on an organized team that travels all over. A harbinger of this professionalization of a kiddie pastime was this recording of "Little League," the Official March of Little League Baseball, as recorded by LeRoy Holmes back in 1951. It may have had something to do with the Little League World Series, which had begun in 1947.
Jane Morgan - Baseball, Baseball
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| Jane Morgan and the All-Stars |
What if you are not all that interested in baseball and the object of your affection is more obsessed by the box score than by scoring points with you? Such was the dilemma faced by pop singer Jane Morgan in her entertaining 1954 record "Baseball, Baseball." She eventually gets her revenge but has to go to extreme measures to do so. Old reliable George Barnes provides the backing.
Phil Foster - A Brooklyn Dodgers Fan
In the mid-1950s, longtime comic and actor Phil Foster styled himself as "Brooklyn's Ambassador to the U.S.A." He even did a series of shorts called "Brooklyn Goes to ..." with the destinations being such glamorous locales as Paris and Cleveland. In his amusing 1954 record "A Brooklyn Baseball Fan" he gives some insight into Dodger fandom. Just a few years later (see sheet music above) he was praying to keep Dem Bums in Dat Ebbets Field. It didn't work - they were off to LA in 1957.
Tom Anderson - Love Goes on Like a Ball Game
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| Billboard review, February 20, 1954 |
We've already heard a preacher using baseball as a simile; now here's country singer Tom Anderson claiming that his "Love Goes on Like a Ball Game." Anderson only made a few records, but he was a good singer, and his lament here shows that off well. I believe that he and the Deep Valley Boys were from Virginia.
Willie Mays and the Treniers - Say Hey
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| Willie Mays |
A baseball great who was both the subject and the purveyor of a song was centerfielder Willie Mays of the New York (soon to be San Francisco) Giants. Like Joe DiMaggio above, Mays appears at the beginning of the tune, then gives way to the kinetic Treniers. The song is named for Willie's catchphrase "Say Hey." Mays and the arranger of this record, Quincy Jones, both died within the past year. Twins Cliff and Claude Trenier passed away some time ago.
The Voices of Walter Schumann - Shoeless Joe from Hannibal, Mo.
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| From a staging of Damn Yankees |
In Douglas Wallop's 1954 novel The Year the Yankees Lost the Pennant, middle-aged Joe Boyd makes a pact with the Devil to be transformed into young baseball phenom Joe Hardy so that he can save the Washington Senators' season. Wallop's story became a Broadway musical and the subsequent film Damn Yankees. In the staging the Senators welcome the new hero in the number "Shoeless Joe from Hannibal, Mo." here in a spirited version from the Voices of Walter Schumann.
The Voice of Mickey Mantle and Teresa Brewer - I Love Mickey
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| Teresa Brewer and Mickey Mantle |
Teresa Brewer's singing was a strange combination of Kay Starr and Betty Boop. I don't care for her vocalizing, but here she extols my childhood hero, slugger Mickey Mantle of the Yankees, so we just had to include the record. For some reason, Coral billed the Mick as "The Voice of Mickey Mantle," so as to assure us we weren't getting his ear or elbow on the record. The conceit here is that Brewer squeaks "I Love Mickey" and The Voice of Mickey responds, "Mickey who?" It goes on like that for a couple minutes. I'll stick with the Treniers.
That's all for today. But Ernie and I enjoyed doing this so much that, to paraphrase Ernie Banks, "Let's post two!"
Until then, as they say at your local Field of Misbegotten Dreams, "Play ball!"
