For anyone who has ever sung Take Me Out to the Ball Game during the seventh-inning stretch and wondered why we sing it when we are already at the ball game, this entertaining book supplies the answers. And why did this song become the sport s anthem rather than one of hundreds of other baseball songs, such as George M. Cohan s Take Your Girl to the Ball Game, written the same month? This story, told here in full for the first time, evokes the bright hope of turn-of-the-century America, the backstage drama of vaudeville, and the beguiling charm of baseball itself.
Amy Whorf McGuiggan...