When the seventh inning arrives at Coors Field tonight, 50,000 baseball fans will stand and sing “Take Me Out to the Ball Game,” a rite as binding as churchgoers lifting their voices in hymns.
Why that song at that time? Because it’s tradition, one of many handed down from parents to children at ballparks.
More than any other American sport, baseball is a repository of rituals. Some are goofy, some sublime.
And with the Rockies battling the Arizona Diamondbacks this evening in the National League pennant series, these rites take on deeper meaning. What was ritual during the regular season becomes religion in October.
Whether it’s “The Star-Spangled Banner” or the seventh-inning stretch, scarfing hot dogs or watching Hizzoner throw out the first pitch, these traditions unite us in the ballpark and link us to the past.
“Baseball has been played in this country for 150 years, and while you have other great sports that grew up in America, none have that long history,” said Tom Shieber, senior curator at the National Baseball Hall of Fame & Museum in Cooperstown, N.Y. “Baseball and its traditions are a part of your life in this country, often in ways you don’t even realize.
“It’s just osmosis,” he said. “It’s part of the American landscape.”
As with all long-standing customs, the origins of many baseball traditions are fuzzy. Sorting out the stories makes for an oddball romp in our pop-culture past.
Take the seventh-inning stretch. The source of this late-game break is unknown, although there’s no lack of creation myths.
One theory is that in a 1910 game, President Taft hoisted his 300-pound frame out of his wooden seat in the seventh inning to stretch his legs. Fans in the stadium stood in respect.
But references to this tradition appeared in 1869, which pre-dated Taft’s presidency by 40 years. Taft does get credit as the first president to throw out an opening-day pitch, another rite reserved for dignitaries and hometown heroes.
Food is also rooted in baseball tradition. These days you get can everything from nachos to sushi at a game, but the holy trinity remains hot dogs, Cracker Jack and peanuts. (Lore has it that Babe Ruth once gorged himself sick between innings on hot dogs.)
For fan Kristin Short, the sport’s traditions embody part of the nation’s soul.
“Baseball is patriotic,” said Short, who works for Republic National Distributing Co. in Littleton. “Everything that’s encompassed in baseball, from hot dogs to cold draft beer, is all-American.”
Corny snack, corny melody
One of her favorite ballyard pastimes: eating sunflower seeds.
“There’s nothing like it,” she said. “It’s best at a night game, when you get a whiff of freshly watered grass, and you’re sitting with friends and carrying on a conversation while the professionals play.”
Two ballpark traditions wound up entwined, with the mention of one invoking the other: Cracker Jack was invented in 1893 for sale at that year’s Chicago World’s Fair. It grew popular enough to earn a mention in “Take Me Out to the Ball Game,” written in 1908.
Music resonates in our daily lives, and it’s no different when we sit down in the bleachers.
“The Star-Spangled Banner” is sung at the start of every baseball game, and most folks still doff their ballcaps and hold them over their hearts during the music.
The song’s history at ballgames is a bit murky. In 1916, President Wilson ordered it played at various state occasions, although the song did not become the national anthem until 1931. Some sources cite its baseball debut as the 1918 World Series, but others argue that it was performed at opening-day ceremonies in Philadelphia in 1897 and became a staple at New York City’s Polo Grounds in 1898.
The song is a tradition, despite its tough 1 1/2-octave range. In today’s celebrity-watching age, the ritual has morphed into one where crowds wait for the singer to miss a note.
Jake Schroeder, frontman for the Denver band Opie Gone Bad, sings the national anthem at several Rockies games a season. It takes him 1 minute and 5 seconds. He’s timed it.
“The main challenge is that it’s such a big deal that I’d be mortified to screw it up,” Schroeder said. “It’s hard for me to describe how much that song means to me, so I sing it pretty straight.
“My dad was real stoic, and I only saw him cry a few times when I was growing up, but he always got teary-eyed during the national anthem.”
“Take Me Out to the Ball Game” is part of the seventh-inning stretch. Singing it waned for a time until legendary announcer Harry Caray revived it during the 1970s during his stint in the broadcast booth with the Chicago White Sox.
Now it’s a ballpark standard, considered the third-most sung song in the country, behind “Happy Birthday” and the national anthem.
One tradition that seems to be dying is fans tracking the game on a scorecard, a somewhat complex practice that many adults once taught kids. “You hardly see anyone doing that any more,” Shieber said.
Where “the wave” began
Some traditions are more recent, reflecting the fact that for all its timelessness, baseball can embrace change.
The wave – where successive sections of fans lift their arms, rise, then seat themselves – is only about as old as the first Apple computer.
Some claim it was invented at a hockey game in Canada, then exported to America. It’s believed that the first wave in major-league baseball came on Oct. 15, 1981, in Oakland, Calif., during an American League Championship Series game between the Athletics and New York Yankees. The instigator: a pro cheerleader named Krazy George Henderson.
Team mascots are also fairly new. Philadelphia has the Philly Phanatic, which resembles what you might get if Sesame Street’s Big Bird was hatched at Three Mile Island. San Diego has its chicken. The Arizona Diamondbacks have Baxter the Bobcat – a furry snake costume apparently being too impractical. The Rockies have Dinger, a purple dinosaur that’s a nod to the dinosaur bones found during Coors Field’s construction.
Promotional swag, such as bobblehead dolls, has long been a ballpark hit. Some promos have backfired. In 1974, over-served fans rioted at a Cleveland Indians game during a 10-cent beer night.
Other traditions speak to the bond between players and fans. Hit a decisive home run, and the cheering crowd might entice the hero to emerge from the dugout and tip his cap, although Ted Williams famously refused to do so when he homered in his last at-bat with the Boston Red Sox.
Rene Ramirez, former director of the Colorado Civil Rights Division, sees baseball’s traditions as a social glue.
“You see more diversity in baseball than any other professional sport,” he said. “Baseball is a microcosm of American society, and it heartens me to see so many young people at the game.”
Ramirez landed playoff tickets. But as happy as he is to have them, this series’ night games undercut one of his favorite baseball traditions.
“My wife and I like to go to afternoon day games during the week,” he said. “It makes me feel like I’m playing hooky even though I’m retired.”
William Porter: 303-954-1877 or wporter@denverpost.com
