One of the most popular songs in 1908 was “Take Me Out to the Ballgame”. Almost everyone is familiar with this song, but did you know what’s sung during the seventh inning stretch at baseball games is only a portion of the song, which contains other verses?
“Take Me Out to the Ballgame” is a fictional story in song about baseball fanatic Katie Casey. The chorus, which we all know, is Katie’s own words to her beau when he comes to pick her up to take her to a show. The chorus is her telling him she’d rather go to a baseball game than see a show.
“Take Me Out to the Ballgame” was written in 1908 by American songwriter Jack Norworth. Norworth was inspired to write the song when, while riding on a train in New York, noticed a sign out the window reading “Base Ball Today – Polo Grounds”, home field of the now defunct New York Giants. Interestingly, Norworth had never attended a baseball game, at least not until 1940 at the age of 61, 32 years after writing the hit song.
Many recording artists in 1908 performed “Take Me Out to the Ballgame”, but the recording by the Haydn Quartet became the most popular rendition that year. Below is that very recording by the Haydn Quartet, which formed in 1896 as the Edison Quartet, solely recording for the Edison label. They changed their name in the early 1900s to the Haydn Quartet to be able to record for other labels, not being confined to just Edison.
FIRST VERSE:
Katie Casey was baseball mad,
Had the fever and had it bad.
Just to root for the home town crew,
Ev’ry sou
Katie blew.
On a Saturday her young beau
Called to see if she’d like to go
To see a show, but Miss Kate said “No,
I’ll tell you what you can do”:
CHORUS:
Take me out to the ball game,
Take me out to the crowd;
Buy me some peanuts and Cracker Jack,
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 it’s one, two, three strikes, you’re out,
At the old ball game.
SECOND VERSE:
Katie Casey saw all the games,
Knew the players by their first names.
Told the umpire he was wrong,
All along,
Good and strong.
When the score was just two to two,
Katie Casey knew what to do,
Just to cheer up the boys she knew,
She made the gang sing this song:
CHORUS REPEATS
Can two teams compete against each other in the same game while not being in each other’s presence? It happened during the 1890s in a sport called “telegraph bowling”.
Newspapers across the United States reported on telegraph bowling matches. Some of the known games covered were between Seattle and Spokane, Boston and Brooklyn, Buffalo and Chicago, among numerous other cities.
By 1899, the idea of telegraph bowling had spread to other competitions. The New York Times reported of a “telegraph revolver match” between gun clubs in Brooklyn and Louisville.
Fans scaling the fence into the ballpark prior to the start of Game 3 in Boston.
View from the stands during Game 4 in Pittsburgh.
Boston pitcher Bill Dinneen talking with a police officer during Game 6 in Pittsburgh about being heckled by Pittsburgh fans. On Dinneen’s side, however, a group of hardcore rowdy Boston fans, known as the Royal Rooters (seen with megaphones), followed the Americans to Pittsburgh and were in the stands singing rallying songs for Boston while taunting the opponent, as they were known to do.
Fans running onto the field following Boston’s victory at home, becoming the first World Series champions.
Every baseball game includes the seventh inning stretch. How and when did this tradition originate?
In June 1869, the New York Herald covered a game between the Cincinnati Red Stockings and the Brooklyn Eagles. A stretch during the second inning was mentioned. The Herald reported, “At the close of the long second inning, the laughable stand up and stretch was indulged in all round the field.”
Later that same year, the Cincinnati Commercial covered a game between the Boston Red Stockings and the Eagle Club of San Francisco. This time, a stretch during the sixth inning was mentioned. The Commercial reported, “One thing noticeable in this game was a ten minutes’ intermission at the end of the sixth inning – a dodge to advertise and have the crowd patronize the bar.”
A letter written in 1869 by Cincinnati Red Stockings player/manager Harry Wright mentioned a stretch during the seventh inning of a game. Wright wrote, “The spectators all arise between halves of the seventh inning, extend their legs and arms and sometimes walk about. In so doing they enjoy the relief afforded by relaxation from a long posture upon hard benches.”
On October 18, 1889, in a championship game between the New York Giants and Brooklyn Bridegrooms (so named because a number of players on the team had recently been married), someone in the stands, in support of the home team during the seventh inning, shouted, “Stretch for luck!”, in which a stretch by the spectators at that time occurred.
The seventh inning stretch, however, did not gain national popularity until April 14, 1910, in an Opening Day game between the Washington Senators and Philadelphia Athletics at National Park in Washington, DC. President William Howard Taft was in attendance to throw out the first pitch.
Taft was a large man, standing 6’1” and weighing 350 pounds; the small wooden seats in the ballpark were not comfortable for him.
When the side was retired after the top of the seventh inning, Taft stood up to stretch his legs. The crowd in attendance, thinking he was leaving, also stood up as a sign of respect. When the crowd then saw Taft sit back down, they too sat back down. It is unknown if Taft stretching in the middle of the seventh inning was just a coincidence or if he had knowledge of previously reported seventh inning stretches and purposely waited for that time to stretch. Either way, the incident was reported in newspapers and the seventh inning stretch, as we now know it, was born.
As a sidenote, April 14, 1910 was the first time a president threw out the first pitch on Opening Day, a tradition which has taken place each year since.
In December 1905, the Cincinnati Commercial Tribune published the illustration below of players dead on a field with the Grim Reaper sitting on a goal post, a fitting image to sum up a deadly season.
How did the football get its shape, known as a prolate spheroid?
he very first game of American football took place on November 6, 1869 between the College of New Jersey (now Princeton) and Rutgers University. Rutgers won 6-4, the rules of the game consisting of a combination of rugby and soccer.
“The ball was not an oval but was supposed to be completely round. It never was, though — it was too hard to blow up right. The game was stopped several times that day while the teams called for a little key from the sidelines. They used it to unlock the small nozzle which was tucked into the ball and then took turns blowing it up. The last man generally got tired and they put it back in play somewhat lopsided.”
The 1904 Men’s Marathon is regarded as one of the strangest events in Olympics history.
The 1904 Summer Olympics took place in St. Louis, Missouri. The Men’s Marathon consisted of 32 runners representing four nations. At the time, water was not believed to be beneficial and was therefore not allowed to be carried by the runners. There were only two freshwater wells along the course, the first one not appearing until near the 11-mile mark. Needless to say, several runners collapsed during the race from dehydration.
One competitor collapsed after his stomach lining was ripped by the dust he was inhaling from vehicles in front of him, leading to an internal hemorrhage. Another was chased off the course by a pack of wild dogs. Yet another spotted an orchard along the way and stopped to eat apples which turned out to be rotten, resulting in a severe stomachache which caused the competitor to lie down and take a long nap to recover.
The second person to cross the finish line was another American, Thomas Hicks, who, desperate for a drink of water by the 10-mile mark, was refused it by his two-man support team, who rode behind him in a vehicle. They instead fed him a concoction of egg whites and strychnine. Strychnine was used to stimulate athletic performance at the time, but it was also a strong poison which could lead to convulsions, asphyxia, and death.
When Hicks began to tire again late in the race, his support team gave him more egg whites and strychnine, but still refused him water. Instead, he was allowed to wash the concoction down with brandy. Hicks was beginning to hallucinate and could barely stand by the end of the race, in which his support team had to hold him up as he shuffled his feet over the finish line. The judges agreed this assistance in crossing the finish line was acceptable and awarded Hicks the gold medal. This race was so physically damaging to Hicks that he would never again run professionally.
The photo below is of Thomas Hicks just before crossing the finish line with the help of his two-man support team. Behind him are vehicles carrying race officials.
Bowling a perfect game is one of the most difficult feats in sports. Mathematicians have figured that the odds of bowling a perfect 300 game are 11,500 to 1.
On February 11 1905, professional bowler James Blackwell, of Seattle, Washington, nearly bowled a perfect game but was left brokenhearted with a final score of 299.5. Where did the .5 come from? A pin cracked in half on his last ball in the 10th frame.
The first modern Olympics began on April 6, 1896 in Athens, Greece. A total of 241 athletes from 14 countries participated in 43 events including track & field, gymnastics, swimming and rowing (both of which took place in the open sea), shooting, cycling, tennis, fencing, weightlifting and wrestling. All athletes were men. Women did not begin participating in the Olympics until 1900.
The first athlete to win a medal was American James Connolly in the Triple Jump, called the Hop, Skip and Jump at the time. Connolly is seen below posing next to the American flag during those Olympics. Gold medals did not exist at this time. First place finishers received silver medals, seen in the last photo below. The 1900 Olympics saw the awarding of trophies instead of medals, though medals were again awarded during the 1904 Olympics, this time including gold for first place.
An American, Robert Garrett (also pictured below), won first place in the Discus Throw despite never having thrown one before.
France, Great Britain, Germany and Greece had the largest number of athletes. However, the United States took home the most first place medals.
The 1896 Olympics concluded on April 15. Below are images from Opening Day on April 6 as well as numerous events, many of them containing American athletes. It is unclear which country the athlete is from receiving an award in the second to last photo.
Rare footage of the Standing High Jump, a defunct Olympic event, seen here from 1896, the year the first modern Olympics began.
Rare footage of the One Arm Lift, which took place on the first day of the weightlifting competition in Athens, Greece during the 1896 Olympics. On the second day, weightlifters were allowed to perform any trick with weights they wanted (as seen in this footage). The more impressive the trick, the more it added to the athlete’s overall score.
An event which occurred during a 1903 baseball game, though fictional, gained so much attention that the line between fiction and reality became blurred, even for some involved in that specific game itself.
Charles Dryden was a baseball writer and humorist for the Philadelphia North American. He was known for his wit and colorful detailed descriptions of gameplay. He would go on to be known as “the Mark Twain of baseball”.
Philadelphia Athletics pitcher Rube Waddell was a favorite of Dryden to write about and spin tall tales of. Waddell was an alcoholic known for his eccentric behavior on and off the field, as well as being drunk during games. While pitching, he was easily distracted by shiny objects in the stands, putting him in a trance-like state until being snapped out of it.
Dryden included fictional accounts of Waddell in his game coverage to accentuate the already bizarre antics of the player. Of course, those who knew of Dryden’s humor understood his tales of the player to be fictional. However, those in other states who happened to get a hold of one of Dryden’s stories believed what they read to be true.
One of these accounts include Waddell running off the pitcher’s mound during a game and out of the ballpark to chase after a fire engine. Another account was of him coming out of a bar drunk and noticing a woman drowning in a river. He jumped in the river and swam out to save her only to discover once he reached her that “she” was actually just a log. Readers of the Philadelphia North American could not get enough of Dryden’s fictional tales of Waddell and eagerly awaited his write-up each time Waddell pitched. Keep in mind, this was a time in which alcoholism was not understood the way it is today, nor properly dealt with.
Dryden’s most famous story of Waddell involved a foul ball hit by him causing an explosion in a Boston bean factory next to the ballpark, resulting in scalding hot beans raining down on those attending the game. The story appeared in the Philadelphia North American on August 12, 1903, and due to its bizarre nature was picked up by other papers throughout the country. As previously mentioned, those who were familiar with Dryden’s humor understood it to be fiction whereas the rest of the country did not. It is likely why this event is mistakenly reported as fact to this day. The story appears in the first image below.
Dryden’s account of this event was so vivid that 50 years later, former Athletics first baseman Harris Davis, who played in that specific game, developed a memory of the incident actually occurring, recalling it as “the freakiest thing I ever saw happen at a ballpark. I know that doesn’t make much sense, but it actually happened, late in the 1903 season. And I’ve got a newspaper clipping to prove it.”
As a sidenote, Waddell’s alcoholism did not effect his performance on the field. He was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1946. He caught pneumonia in 1912 and again in 1913, then was diagnosed with tuberculosis in 1914. He died that year in a sanatorium at the age of 37.
Charles Dryden’s tales of Rube Waddell have lived on, though what is fact and what is fiction continues to be debated among baseball historians. Though Dryden covered professional baseball games for nearly 20 years, it is Waddell’s fictional foul ball bean incident he is most remembered for. The photo of Dryden below is the only public photo known of him.
Many would be surprised to know that Abraham Lincoln is in the National Wrestling Hall of Fame, inducted with the honor of “Outstanding American”. In his youth, Lincoln loved to wrestle. His matches weren’t organized like they are today, and there of course was no determined winner prior to the match beginning like in the WWE. His matches involved real skill and took place throughout various towns against other local boys, usually outside in front of crowds gathered to watch the event. Lincoln took part in over 300 matches, only losing once. His height of 6’2″ in his early 20s gave him an advantage over his opponents. This was a time in which the average height of an American male was around 5’8″.
Lincoln’s most prominent moment came during a match in Illinois in 1832 against a town bully. Jack Armstrong, the leader of a local gang, named the Clary’s Grove Boys, was said to be the toughest kid in town, and when he heard of Lincoln’s wrestling skills, Armstrong challenged him to a match. Armstrong, an experienced wrestler himself, had a tough time against Lincoln due to Lincoln’s height and resorted to trickery to try and get the upper hand, including tripping. Lincoln, always one to follow rules, became so enraged with the underhanded tactics that he lifted Armstrong in the air by his neck, and according to one witness, “shook him like a rag”, before throwing him to the ground, ultimately ending the match. Armstrong’s gang then surrounded Lincoln as if to attack. Lincoln, still enraged, challenged to take on each one of them, shouting, “I’m the big buck of this lick! If any of you want to try it, come on and whet your horns!” No one stepped forward.
The match was considered a draw as there was no clear winner, at least by rules of wrestling. Once cooler heads prevailed, Armstrong admitted Lincoln had in fact defeated him and the two shook hands, becoming good friends.
Could a professional athlete today get away with giving the middle finger during a team picture? How about on a sports card? One athlete got away with it twice.
Baseball Hall of Famer Charlie “Old Hoss” Radbourn was a pitcher for the Boston Beaneaters during the late 1880s, long before the team became known as the Boston Braves, the team eventually moving to Milwaukee in 1953 and then Atlanta in 1966. Radbourn was famous for his toughness and bad temper.
When one thinks of 19th century bare-knuckle boxing, champion boxers like John L. Sullivan and “Gentleman Jim” Corbett come to mind. However, women partook in the sport as well.
Regarding the championship match, The National Police Gazette reported:
“Hattie, who was born in Norfolk, had boxed all the women challengers in variety theaters around the country. She won the title on April 14, 1884 by defeating Anna Lewis, a tough rough customer.”
(The artist didn’t intend to show face resemblance)
Illustration from the National Police Gazette
