Editing Take Me Out to the Ball Game (section)

==History==
[[Jack Norworth]], while riding a [[New York City Subway|subway]] train, was inspired by a sign that said "Baseball Today – [[Polo Grounds]]". 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 baseball game. The words were set to music by [[Albert Von Tilzer]]. (Norworth and Von Tilzer finally saw their first [[Major League Baseball]] games 32 and 20 years later, respectively.) The song was first sung by Norworth's then-wife [[Nora Bayes]] and popularized by many other vaudeville acts. It was played at a ballpark for the first known time in 1934, at a high-school game in [[Los Angeles]]; it was played later that year during the fourth game of the [[1934 World Series]].<ref>{{cite book|last1=Thompson|first1=Robert|title=Baseball's Greatest Hit: The Story of "Take Me Out to the Ball Game"|date=2008|publisher=Hal Leonard Corporation|page=63}}</ref>

Norworth wrote an alternative version of the song in 1927. (Norworth and Bayes were famous for writing and performing such smash hits as "[[Shine On, Harvest Moon]]".)<ref name=LBHS>{{cite web | url=http://www.lagunahistory.org/html/norworth.html | publisher=Laguna Beach Historical Society | accessdate=July 17, 2008 | title=Jack Norworth & Take Me Out to the Ball Game |archiveurl = https://web.archive.org/web/20080204072809/http://www.lagunahistory.org/html/norworth.html |archivedate = February 4, 2008}}</ref><ref name=Archeo>{{cite web | url=http://www.archeophone.com/product_info.php?products_id=55 | publisher=Archeophone Records | accessdate=July 17, 2008 | title=Nora Bayes and Jack Norworth: Together and Alone | archive-date=September 18, 2008 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080918192606/http://www.archeophone.com/product_info.php?products_id=55 | url-status=dead }}</ref> With the sale of so many records, sheet music, and piano rolls, the song became one of the most popular hits of 1908. [[The Haydn Quartet]] [[Barbershop music|singing group]], led by popular [[tenor]] Harry MacDonough, recorded a successful version on [[Victor Records]].<ref name=MLB>{{cite web | url=http://mlb.mlb.com/mlb/fan_forum/babyruth/index.jsp?content=history | title=Take Me Out to the Ball Game: Song History | publisher=[[Major League Baseball]] | accessdate=July 17, 2008 | first=Mark | last=Newman }}</ref>

Its use became popularized by [[Harry Caray]], the announcer of the [[Chicago White Sox]], when he began singing it during the [[seventh-inning stretch]] in 1976. He continued the tradition when he became the announcer for the [[Chicago Cubs]] in 1982 and games were nationally broadcast.<ref>{{cite web | url=https://www.espn.com/mlb/news/story?id=3476916 | title=Drehs: "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" a national treasure | date=July 8, 2008 }}</ref>

The most famous recording of the song was credited to "[[Billy Murray (singer)|Billy Murray]] and the Haydn Quartet", even though Murray did not sing on it.<ref name=PPG>{{cite news | url=http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/08175/891968-63.stm | accessdate=July 17, 2008 | date=June 23, 2008 | work=[[Pittsburgh Post-Gazette]] | first=Andrew | last=Druckenbrod | title=Name this tune: You sing 'Take Me Out,' it's 100 years old }}</ref> The confusion, nonetheless, is so pervasive that, when "Take Me Out to the Ball Game" was selected by the [[National Endowment for the Arts]] and the [[Recording Industry Association of America]] as one of the 365 top "[[Songs of the Century]]", the song was credited to Billy Murray, implying his recording of it as having received the most votes among songs from the first decade.<ref>[http://nfo.net/usa/365y.htm Big Bands Database Plus] (row for 1908).</ref>  The first recorded version was by [[Edward Meeker]].  Meeker's recording was selected by the [[Library of Congress]] as a 2010 addition to the [[National Recording Registry]], which selects recordings annually that are "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".<ref>{{cite web | url=http://www.loc.gov/rr/record/nrpb/registry/nrpb-2010reg.html | title=The National Recording Registry 2010 | accessdate=April 10, 2011 | publisher=Library of Congress}}</ref>