Take Me Out To The Ballgame….

“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.”

I love this catchy little song and yes, I have sang it along with baseball fans and announcers during the 7th inning stretch of many Kansas City Royals Home games!

The song was written in 1908 by Jack Norworth who was a very successful vaudeville entertainer / songwriter.  Mr. Norworth spent fifteen minutes writing this classic which is sung during the seventh inning stretch at nearly every ball park in the country. The lyrics were written on some scrap paper on a train ride to Manhattan, New York.

Norworth then provided those paper scrap lyrics to Albert Von Tilzer who composed the music which in turn was published by the York Music Company and before the year was over, a hit song was born.

Monday….March 31… Opening Day for Kansas City Royals Baseball!!

Map of MLB Cities 

What was that you said?  

Did you ask me how we transitioned from the NCAA Tournament to Baseball?  Hey, it happens…many times sports overlap. 🙂

Yes, I am still a fan of the NCAA and yes, my team the Kansas Jayhawks were knocked out early in the tourney, but there is always next year.

 My bracket, like many others,  is so busted!  The only team I still have on paper is Florida! I am still watching of course, but today is: 

Major League Baseball OPENING DAY!

For years and years, it has been a day when skipping school to catch the Opening Day game is not only accepted, but expected.  Opening Day is, unofficially, the first day of spring and fans young and old hope their team will win the majority of their 162 games and end up in the World Series in the Fall.

There is something about the quiet, slow pace of the game that allows the mind to just wander and relax in the warm sunshine. If you are at the game with friends, you can catch up with small talk and not miss the ground ball to the second baseman, unlike the other fast paced sports where you blink and you miss an important play.

It is almost like all the fast paced sports are over and now baseball comes around to slow you down to let you enjoy America’s past time! I also like to crack open peanuts, dropping the shells (it is ok at the ball park) and popping the salty morsels in your mouth.

Not everyone feels as I do.  Not everyone enjoys the slow pace of a baseball game. Most sports fans desire entertainment that is fast paced, loud and straightforward. This is the age of Instant gratification!

 

Baseball, indeed, is a slow, snail-like, entertainment sport…and fans who are not die-hard fans are no longer willing to devote the mental energy necessary for this game called baseball.  

Baseball requires an appreciation of moments that are widely spaced.  In comparison, basketball and football … (which I also support)… depend on many strategies, which provide quick, big play excitement that appeals to a younger and perhaps broader fan participation. The style and pace of baseball does not seem to hold to this modern sports consumer’s short attention span.  

   

We love all sports…the fast paced and the slow paced.  There is room in our lives for both….and I have to confess that baseball is a welcome relief from a Winter of anxiety laden overtimes, close scoring games and flagrant fouls and fines, etc.  It is time to stop and smell the roses and that is what baseball does for me…a true fan fanatic.

The Captain and I really enjoy going to baseball games, and though we do not live in KC anymore, we plan on going to baseball games here in Florida .

There is nothing like a summer evening spent at the ballpark, munching on hot dogs and sipping lemonade…and making slow paced memories.  

Even when the KC Royals lose their afternoon opening game in Detroit to the Tigers……4-3 🙂

Me