Baseball and Tradition — Baseball Bench Coach

So often I hear people say that watching baseball from home on High Definition television is better than attending a game in person. For me, I’ll take going to the ballpark any day. There’s always been so much more to it than baseball when I go to the game. I particularly love the quiet time, a chance to catch up with a friend. When my Dad took me to Crosley Field in Cincinnati when I was a little boy, he used it as a time to not only teach me about the game but become aware of patriotism. I learned how to honor America by taking off my baseball cap during the National Anthem, and soon I even learned the words to the song. Yeah, I was one of those kids who always asked “why”. Why do we sing the National Anthem? How come we stand and sing “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” during the seventh inning? Let’s answer why.

The “Star Spangled Banner”, our country’s National Anthem, first was played at a sporting event during the Civil War, in 1862, at a baseball game. The tradition of playing it took off during the 1918 World Series between the Cubs and the Red Sox. The country was at war, World War I, and in the throes of a pandemic, the Spanish flu. In a game in Chicago, a military band played the National Anthem during the seventh inning stretch. Players quickly put their hands over their hearts and fans joined in and sang. When the Series returned to Boston, the Red Sox owner, Harry Frazee, one-upped the Cubs by having the National Anthem played before the game. The pregame tradition did not catch on immediately for regular season games since most ballparks didn’t have great sound systems and teams couldn’t afford a band. It was not until the 1940s when the National Anthem was played before all MLB games.

When the seventh inning stretch began is disputed. Some baseball historians point to the Cincinnati Red Stockings in 1869 and a letter written by Harry Wright who managed the club. He described the fans’ behavior at the ballpark in this way: “The spectators all arise between halves of the seventh inning, extend their legs and arms and sometimes walk about.” The most popular story around its origin points to Opening Day in 1910 when President William Howard Taft attended a game between the Washington Senators and the Philadelphia Athletics. A quite burly man, President Taft stood up to stretch in the seventh inning. The fans soon stood as well, feeling obligated to join the President.

During the seventh inning stretch we now rejoice in the singing of “Take Me Out to the Ballgame”, the official anthem of major league baseball. The song was played for the first time in 1934 at a high school baseball game in Los Angeles, and then during the fourth game of the World Series that year. There are a couple tweaks to the original song at MLB ballparks, including replacing the words “home team” with the actual name of your home team. I sometimes catch myself singing “and it’s root, root for the Redlegs”, in memory of my late parents. That doesn’t play well in Chicago, where fans have reveled in “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” since the days of Harry Caray singing to the crowd at Comiskey Park in the 1970s. Caray brought the tradition to the north side in 1982 as he entertained the fans at Wrigley for the next sixteen years until his passing. The Cubs have maintained the tradition by having guest singers since then, including my personal favorite, actor and comedian Bill Murray.

Many MLB teams enhance the “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” seventh inning stretch by also playing a fan favorite tune. In Baltimore’s Camden Yards, the crowd is treated to a rousing rendition of John Denver’s “Thank God I’m a Country Boy”. Atlanta fans share that experience at their home ballpark. St. Louis has always celebrated around their home town brew, Budweiser. When the Cardinals were under ownership by Anheuser-Busch, the crowd would be treated to a little “Here Comes the King” jingle during the seventh inning stretch. Nowadays, the organist plays the tune at the top of the eighth inning. Indeed, often the MLB ballpark singing extends to the eighth inning. The Dodgers and the Tigers both like to blast Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believin”. That finally worked last year for Los Angeles but minus the crowd.

The Red Sox fans take singing to a whole different level at Fenway Park with their ballpark anthem, Neil Diamond’s “Sweet Caroline”. The crowd rejoices in the song during the eighth inning. The tradition started in 1997 when a ballpark attendant in charge of the music had a good friend who just gave birth to a little girl named Caroline. In 2007, Neil Diamond revealed that the 1969 song was written about New England’s Caroline Kennedy. Other than that, the lyrics actually have nothing to do with Boston. It’s all about having fun at the old ballpark.

The playing of the National Anthem at sporting events became a focus of attention during the protests of the Vietnam War in the 1960’s. NFL Commissioner Pete Rozelle invoked a policy that players stand in line on the sideline during the anthem with their helmets off and tucked under their arms. As to MLB, singer Jose Feliciano was invited by Detroit to sing the National Anthem at Tiger Stadium before Game 5 of the 1968 World Series. His slow, Latin jazz performance on acoustic guitar was highly controversial. Many deemed the rendition a slight to patriotism. In 2006, Feliciano told an NPR audience that he was quite proud to be the one to open the door for other music artists to express themselves while performing the National Anthem. During the past few years, of course, we’ve seen players uniting in protest against racial injustice during the National Anthem, most particularly in the NBA and NFL.

Baseball’s most patriotic response to our nation’s troubling times came twenty years ago in the aftermath of 9/11. Both the Yankees and Mets players and personnel came to Ground Zero and helped in the relief efforts. Then Yankees manager Joe Torre simply said: “We’re just baseball players, and this is the game of life.” I’ll never forget watching on television the first game played in New York after the attacks, a night game between the Mets and Braves at Shea Stadium. As the American flag was draped across the turf and the National Anthem was played, there was an overwhelming sense of pride that our country would endure this tragedy. The World Series was played in NYC the next month as the Yankees and Diamondbacks competed for the world championship. President Bush threw out the ceremonial first pitch in Game 3.

In my lifetime though the most patriotic act on the playing field took place in a regular season game on April 25, 1976, between the Cubs and Dodgers in Los Angeles. In the bottom of the fourth inning, two fans ran into the outfield attempting to set fire to an American flag. Fortunately, their initial attempts to light the matches went awry and Cubs centerfielder Rick Monday sprinted in and snatched the flag from them. Early last month I attended the Cubs “Reopening Day” at Wrigley Field. One of my friends had the honor of running on the field with others to unveil an American flag that spanned the entire outfield playing surface. He mused afterward that he didn’t want to be the one who might trip and cause the flag to fall. In baseball, the American flag always flies proudly.

Until next week,

your Baseball Bench Coach