March 29: Take Me Out to the Ball Game

Albert Von Tilzer (Elias Gumm), a Tin Pan Alley songster who in 1908 wrote the music for “Take Me Out to the Ball Game,” was born in Indianapolis on this date in 1878. He and three brothers, including songwriter Harry Von Tilzer, were all very active in the music industry (“Tilzer” was their mother’s maiden name.) The lyrics for “Take Me Out to the Ball Game” were written by Jack Norworth, a successful vaudevillian, on a scrap of paper in fifteen minutes while he was riding the subway. (Norworth, not Jewish, was married to Nora Bayer, a famous Jewish vaudeville performer, with whom he wrote “Shine On, Harvest Moon,” among numerous other show tunes.) The baseball song is narrated by a woman named Katie Casey, whose beau wants to bring her to a show, but she prefers the national pastime. In an updated version that Norworth published in 1927, “Katie Casey” became “Nelly Kelly.” Albert Von Tilzer, meanwhile, composed several Broadway scores and also contributed songs to films in the 1920s and ’30s.

“Nelly Kelly was sure some fan,
She would root just like any man,
Told the umpire he was wrong,
All along, good and strong.
When the score was just two to two,
Nelly Kelly 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”