Talkin' Baseball

Yeah, the season's coming up. And my mind wandered to baseball songs.

Of course, "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" is too easy. Cool, but too easy.

But here is the second greatest baseball tune of the latter half of the 20th century. Check out Fogerty's guitar in this vid:



Another great song (which mentions so many greats from the 50s, especially Willie, Mickey, and the Duke) and the footage in this particular video is SO COOL:



But I have a particular soft spot for a different song. It's the one that was played for the pre-game show and for the post-game show for Dodger (genuflect) games when I was a kid. May still be, though I can't be certain because I live out of the area now and can't listen to the games routinely. But a small bit of searching suggests that this song is linked specifically to my bums Dodgers. Hey, they may be bums, but they're MY bums.

The worst part of this post? JeebusJumpingCripesOnAPogoStick. The best audio version I can find on Youtube is one dedicated (apparently) to the Foul, Satan-worshipping, Pedarastic Hellspawn that are the Foul, Satan-worshipping, Pedarastic Hellspawn. Jeez, that hurts. But here it is. Lyrics after the video:



I'll give them this much, though: the last clip on the vid says "and most importantly, almost everyone is doing better than the Wankees".

Lyrics to the song:

Let's go! Batter up! We're taking the afternoon off!

It's a beautiful day for a ballgame, for a ballgame today
The fans are out to get a ticket or two, from Walla Walla, Washington, to Kalamazoo
It's a beautiful day for a home run, or even a triple's okay
We're gonna cheer and boo and raise a hullabaloo at the ball game today.

Batter up! Strike one! Hey, the game has just begun and the home team's out to win!
There he swings! Strike two! At the pitcher's dipsy-doo, See his fastball pop right in!
This is it! Strike three! The fans are tearing up the chairs, but what the heck who cares?

It's a beautiful day for a ballgame, for a ballgame today
If you and I are out of dollars and cents, oh honey we can always share a little hole in the fence.
It's a beautiful day for the ladies, so throw all your dishes away
We're gonna cheer and boo and raise a hullabaloo at the ball game today.
At the ballgame, a wonderful ballgame today.
[smack!]
Wow!

And to finish off this long post, a great GREAT classic from the immortal Danny Kaye, in Monty-Pythonesque Lego people no less:



And even though it's a paean to the LA Dodgers, Danny gets in a few digs at their owner Walter O'Malley ("What does O'Malley do? Charge!"). Well-deserved digs, of course.

Rock on, Danny. We love you forever. C'mon you Flatbush refugees!