Seven Things You May Not Know About The Baseball Classic ‘Take Me Out To The Ballgame’

If you've ever been to a Colorado Rockies Major League Baseball game, or many college and high school games as well, you're familiar with and may even have memorized the words to 'Take Me Out To The Ball Game,' the song typically played and sang during the seventh inning stretch. Here are some bits of trivia you probably don't know about the unofficial baseball anthem.

The song was written in 1908 by Jack Norworth and Albert Von Tilzer When they wrote the song, neither of them had ever attended a baseball game. Some historical accounts say it was 20-30 years after they wrote the song before they ever attended a professional baseball game.

According to Wikipedia, Jack Norworth was inspired by a sign he saw while riding the subway that said "Baseball Today."

In the song, Katie's (and later Nelly's) beau calls to ask her out to see a show. She accepts the date, but only if her date will take her out to the ballgame. The words were set to music by Albert Von Tilzer. Norworth, incidentally, wrote an alternate version of the song in 1927.

The song was played at a ballpark for the first known time in 1934, at a high-school game in Los Angeles, and researchers think it made its debut at a major-league park later that year.

The first recorded version was by Edward Meeker. The most famous recording of the song was credited to 'Bill Murray and the Haydn Quartet,' even though Murray did not sing on it.

'Take Me Out To The Ball Game' has been selected as one of the top songs of the century and is also part of the Library of Congress National Recording Registry.

Typically, only the chorus is sung during baseball games. Listen to this video to hear the original Edward Meeker 1908 recording of the entire song.