Take Me Out to the Ballgame: The Cost of Baseball, the Female Experience, the Myth of the Franchise Player and the 7th Inning Stretch

Take Me Out to the Ballgame

Music by: Albert Von Tizler, 1908
Lyrics by: Jack Norworth
Performed by: Edward Meeker

Audio link to original 1908 recording of Take Me Out to the Ballgame

Photo Courtesy of Tower.com

Jack Norworth was not particularly a baseball fan (he had never actually seen a game before) but song inspirations come from odd places.  Norworth was a song writer (he also wrote the famous song "Shine On Harvest Moon").  One day as he was waiting for a train in the subway he saw a poster advertising a game at the Polo Grounds, the Giants' stadium.  This was 1908, one of the best seasons in history.  This was the year of Merkle's boner, the year of Tinker, Evers and Chance's great comeback, the year of a tight race between the White Sox, Tigers and Indians in the AL, the year that Ed Walsh won 40 games.   No one knew it in 1908 but the anthem that would bring together people for the next 100+ years had been written.  The song is sung by people of all races, religions and national origin.  For some of those people the only thing they have in common is that they are attending the same game, yet for the few moments it takes to sing it, nothing else in the stadium matters.  Norworth used the advertisement as an inspiration to do what songwriters do best, create a story:

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.

1903 World Series Ticket Photo Courtesy of Pittsburgh Post Gazzette

Baseball was not always as expensive as it is now.  For many teams sell out games were the exception, not the rule.  At the time Jack Norworth wrote his famous song a fan could attend a game for $.25 in the bleachers, $.75 in what would now be considered a reserved section and $1.00 for a box seat.  You won't find $1.00 tickets anymore.  Some stadiums will have lower priced tickets (like $14.00 in Baltimore and Kansas City, $13.00 in Philadelphia, $11.00 in Milwaukee, depending on the game in LA you may not get anything cheaper than $30.  Some teams, like Anaheim, Seattle and Houston, are not even advertising their pricing yet.)  Yet the cheaper seats are usually cheaper for a reason.  They are farther away, sometimes at odd angles, sometimes obstructed and depending on the stadium and the crowd, seating areas where the notoriously rowdy fans sit (the old 700 level at the Vet in Philly and the bleachers at Dodger Stadium).  I'm sure anyone reading this would love to get by with spending just a "sou" to get out to see a game.  Yet for two people to attend a game with decent seats, after parking, tickets, food and possibly a souvenir you are lucky to get in and out under $150.  For a family of four you can probably more than double that.  So why is it so expensive?  The common belief is that everything is so expensive to pay for the high priced players contracts but there is so much more to it. The parking, quite often, is run by an outside company who can charge whatever they want and the money does not go to the team (although they may get a percentage).  Concessions are the same situation.  The money that Panda Express or California Pizza Kitchen makes at Dodger Stadium does not go to the Dodgers, though the companies would need to pay some sort of rent for the location.  The cost of tickets continue to go up because the cost of running a team continues to go up.  In 1908 there were no minor leagues, or scouts.  There were no statistic nerds on staff trying to break down what Ryan Howard hits with a 2-0 count on Tuesday afternoons between 1:30 and 2:00 when a left handed pitcher is on the mound with his shoes untied.  There were no grounds crews manicuring every blade of grass.  There was no security and ushers for three tiered stadiums.  The bottom line is that the cost has changed because the game has changed and although most teams are out to put a competitive team on the field, some teams are just out to make a profit.

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."

"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."

The early days of baseball were not for the faint of heart.  Being a ballplayer brought a certain reputation with it.  Ballplayers were dirty, seedy, hard drinking, hard fighting bums who were good for nothing but to play a child's game and act like children.  The fairer sex was not encouraged to attend the games as it was far too seedy for the sensitive nature of young women.  Women who did pay their money to attend a game unattended were often considered immoral.  This was long before before suffragists fought to gain the right to vote.  Before women were allowed to hold political office or serve in the military.  Long before female workers were stereotyped as being limited to a secretarial or clerical role.  This was when women were not even looked at as workers.  Sports page editorials were full of critiques of the players attitudes and behavior on the field.  The players, according to the editorials of the time, needed to display manly decorum, not childish bickering.  It was unmanly to dispute an umpire's poor call, to argue with an opposing player or to haggle over salary.  A "manly" attitude of the time apparently would have been to accept the worst calls quietly.  A"manly" attitude would have been to apologize to the opposing player for getting in his way as you pulled the spikes of his shoes out of your shins.  A "manly" attitude would have been to thank your owner for cutting your low salary by only $300 instead of the $500 it was cut last year.  The fact that the editorials had to comment on this repeatedly clearly means it wasn't being done.  The ballpark was certainly not a place for women to attend unchaperoned, and many had rules to prohibit women from attending without an escort.  Owners were not blind.  They could see that there was money to be made.  They didn't like the idea of their wives or daughters being equal, but their money certainly was.  Many teams offered "ladies only" days where the female fan could feel free to attend the game without fear of the horrible, dirty, uncouth male baseball fan and the team could make money without being accused of defiling feminine morals.  The Washington Nationals of the old National League had a player named Win Mercer who was a favorite of the ladies.  The team made sure Mercer pitched when the Ladies' Day specials took place.  In 1897 Mercer was pitching during one of these games when he started arguing with the umpire over the balls and strikes calls.  Just like today, no one was allowed to get away with arguing balls and strikes and Mercer was ejected from the game.  The female fans were furious that their idol was treated so rudely and they rioted.  The umpire ran for his life and the episode was used as an example of the horrible decay of the moral fabric caused by the evils of baseball.  In June of 1919, as the White Sox destroyed the American League competition and the Reds were fighting their way to an improbable World Series appearance, the senate voted on the right of women to vote and it passed. In 1920 women voted on a national level for the first time.  Fans of the early part of the game would probably be shocked at the fans of today.  While they tried to discourage the female fan from attending for the most part, we now have pink jerseys, pink hats, MLB t-shirts with Hello Kitty and every team store has a women's section.  Baseball is truly the national game and it appeals to, and encourages, both sexes to enjoy the fun.

Katie Casey saw all the games,
Knew the players by their first names;
Told the umpire he was wrong,
All along good and strong.

 

There is a common longing for the nostalgia of the days, not long ago, when players would commonly play their entire career with one team.  Long ago when you could go out to your local park and year after year you would know your players.  They were your team and they represented your city with pride.  The problem with this nostalgia is that the time period we long for never truly existed, and if it did none of us were alive to see it.  The common belief is that prior to free agency players were less greedy and were happy to stay in one place for their whole career.  There are a few problems with this belief.  First,  there is the misconception that players who played their whole career in one stop chose to stay there.  They really did not have a choice.  Every contract until the 1970's had a "reserve clause".  It was standard in every baseball contract.  It said simply that the team reserved the right to sign the player for the year following the current season.  That meant that at the end of the year Ted Williams could sign a contract to play for the Red Sox again at the amount they offered or he could go home and retire.  He could not go discuss a contract with another team.  Not until Marvin Miller organized the players did they find a way to break this clause instituting free agency across the league.  The players who played their entire career with one team were there because they were so good, teams would be crazy to send them to other teams.  Secondly, the belief that more players ended their career with the team they started with is a misconception.  Regardless of the era they played in, once a player's usefulness to a team was gone so were they.  Teams traded players constantly and the players had no say where they went.  When a star's skills started to decline they would likely be traded to another team who could use their name to draw fans, like a side show freak, but the teams could cut their salary because they couldn't perform any more.  Of course there were players who finished their careers with the team they began.  Ted Williams and Carl Yastrzemski played their whole careers with the Red Sox.  Brooks Robinson and Jim Palmer played their entire career in Baltimore.  Joe DiMaggio, Phil Rizzuto, Yogi Berra and Whitey Ford played their entire careers in Yankee pinstripes.  Walter Johnson pitched every game for the Senators.  Yet some of the greatest legends in baseball history played for more than one team.  Babe Ruth played for the Red Sox, Yankees and Braves.  Ty Cobb played for the Tigers and Athletics.  Frankie Frisch played for the Giants and Cardinals.  Eddie Collins played for the Athletics, the White Sox and the A's again.  Tris Speaker played for the Red Sox, Indians and Senators.  Even Cy Young switched teams five times.  Finally,  there is a wrong belief that we truly want players to play their entire career with one team.  In 2011 the Angels had a great team but they missed the playoffs by one game.  Instead of coming back with the same team they "improved" their team by signing Albert Pujols and C.J. Wilson.  Angels fans went crazy.  They couldn't wait for the team to start play with their new pieces.  As the season went on they trailed in the standings and fans demanded that the team improve before the trade deadline so they added Zach Greinke.  They still missed the playoffs so this offseason they signed more players, including Josh Hamilton because the fans were upset that the high priced collection of players the year before were not good enough.  On the other hand, I was told by an on air personality at MLB Radio network (not me personally but all Orioles fans) that I should be outraged that the Orioles had not gone out to sign a high priced free agent to improve their playoff team from last year.  This statement was followed by a barrage of callers who screamed irrationally into the phone about how angry they were that they were getting the same playoff team back again this year.  The truth is there will always be players like Derek Jeter, Cal Ripken, Tony Gwynn and George Brett to play their entire career in one city but we don't really want the same team every year.  Players switching teams is a big part of what excites us every April.  We start every season thinking that the missing piece has been added and this is our year.

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:

"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."

Photo of William Howard Taft Courtesy of Discovery.com

  At a high school baseball game in Los Angeles during 1934, a quarter century after Jack Norworth was stuck waiting for a train on the other side of the country, the crowd was led in a communal rendition of "Take Me Out to the Ballgame".  Later that year it was sung at major league stadiums+.  Through the years it became tradition to the point where we automatically stand up after the top of the 7th and like a sect of monks we chant the lyrics to this song.  Why after the top of the 7th inning?  "Half time" technically would be after the top of the fifth.  Baseball usually does everything in sets of three (3 outs, 3 bases, 3 strikes, 3 sets of 3 innings, 3 divisions in each league).  Wouldn't it make sense to do it after the end of the sixth?  There's a reason we do it specifically in the middle of the 7th:  Tradition.  Before television and radio broadcasts caused commercial breaks in between innings there was a fairly quick transition between innings.  The players jogged to their positions and the game began.  In the early days of the game there was less offense and less long innings (and less concern about damaging pitching arms) so the pitchers could usually get by with a few warm up pitches and get right back into the game.  In 1910 President William Howard Taft was attending a game in Washington. It was not unusual.  Taft was a big baseball fan and was even a partial owner of the Cincinnati Reds for a time.  He was considered for the position of baseball commissioner when the league finally chose Judge Landis.  Taft loved the game and would rather attend a game than anything else.  Taft was a large man, very large  So large that he had to have a special bath tub installed at the White House to fit him.  Seeing a picture of his girth makes you wonder how uncomfortable he must have been in those tiny seat that are even uncomfortable for us today.  After the top of the seventh Taft could stand it no more.  He had to stretch his legs.  Not necessarily walk around but just get up out of that seat for a few minutes.  We may not always give umpires credit but they can be very smart people on occasion.  The umpire that day recognized that the President of the country was not quite ready to watch the next half inning, so he extended the break in between innings. Out of respect for the President the rest of the crowd took the President's example and everyone got up to stretch.  It became a routine just to get your tail out of the uncomfortable seats for a few moments.  Years later the chorus of the song was added to the routine and what better song to sing?  Larry Anderson of the Phillies broadcast team thinks it was started by a moron.  "In the seventh inning everybody gets up and sings 'Take Me Out to the Ballgame' and they're already there. It's really a stupid thing to say."  Anderson may not like it but we would all miss it if we stopped.  It is such a simple thing and yet so important.  When you sing at the ballpark it doesn't matter if you can actually sing on key (the members of my family have proven that).  It doesn't matter if you paid $125 for a boxed seat or $12.00 for the nose bleeds.  It doesn't matter if you have had season tickets for the last thirty years or if you were given free tickets by someone who couldn't use them and you were going just to get out of the house.  None of that matters at the park.  The important thing is the communal experience.  It doesn't matter if you get the words wrong and sing "I don't care if I ever get back" or "I don't care if I never get back".  It doesn't matter if you root, root, root for the "home team" or if you root, root, root for the Cubbies, the Cardinals, the Rockies or the Padres.  What is important is that you are able to enjoy the experience of several thousand people singing anything together regardless of who they are, what they do, how much they earn or what their political beliefs are.

*- Sou= Low denomination French coins.  Only someone who had never seen a game would have used an outdated French form of currency to describe the cost of the American National Pastime.
+- I am working on trying to find the specific high schools involved in the game for all the LA area readers but I have not been able to track it down just yet.  I will keep you updated when I find it.  I am also trying to track down which team first sang the song.