Stadium Symphonies

For years, fans have sung Neil Diamond’s “Sweet Caroline” at Fenway Park. But in April 2013, the song — and the game of baseball — became an emotional salve for a city, a team, and its fans.

Bostonians were still in shock days after two bombs exploded near the finish line of the city’s world-famous marathon, and the region was brought to a standstill while authorities tracked down the suspects.

On Saturday, April 20, 2013, the healing began and Diamond was part of it, making a surprise visit to Fenway to personally lead the sing-along that has been an eighth-inning tradition since John Henry became the Red Sox owner in 2002.

The song – which Diamond wrote about President John F. Kennedy’s daughter – speaks of innocence and beauty, with lyrics such as "spring became the summer” and “hands…reaching out.” Cued by the line “Good times never seemed so good,” the Fenway crowd bursts into a loud refrain: “So good, so good, so good.” Never had fans sung it louder than on this day.

Inspired by the spine-tingling moment, the Sox scored three times in the bottom of the eighth to overcome the Kansas City Royals, 4-3. “Boston Strong” was born, and the Red Sox would ride that wave all the way to October and the franchise’s eighth World Series championship.

Yet it wasn’t only in Boston that Diamond’s pop tune blared from ballpark speakers. Other teams, among them the rival New York Yankees, played the song in the spirit of solidarity – similar to how 12 years earlier fans and players joined in singing “God Bless America” in the wake of the 9/11 attacks. That song remains as much of a game-day staple as “Take Me out to the Ball Game” (more on that later).

Music has blended into baseball’s life since 1858, when “The Base Ball Polka” was played at games of the Niagara Base Ball Club. The National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum celebrates this connection with an interactive audio element in the “Sacred Ground” exhibit.

And just as baseball reflects America’s changing culture, music reveals changes in baseball culture.

In the early days, fans bought sheet music and organized group singing, similar to soccer fans around the world who still sing and chant their songs to rally their clubs and rile the opposition. Before the end of the 19th century, brass bands found their way into the stands, and just prior to World War II, teams began hiring organists to provide a music back-story to games. In the modern era, DJs will play everything from Motown to rap and hip-hop in the never-ending search for the youth market.

Fittingly, similar to how baseball’s slow tension defies the modern demand for action at all costs, baseball’s most enduring song has endured America’s constant shift in mood. “The Star-Spangled Banner” became a baseball institution in the 1918 World Series between the Boston Red Sox and Chicago Cubs. With the nation deep into World War I, enthusiasm for the Fall Classic ebbed. To stoke the Chicago crowd in Game 1, a military band played the martial song in the eighth inning. The crowd’s energy soared. When the series shifted to Boston, the anthem became part of the pregame ceremony.

Organists sometimes play as many as 1,000 songs a season. For years, they had the luxury of sampling long stretches of songs between innings and during pitching changes; later they were limited to 15 or 20 seconds at a time. No matter the length, the best used their skills to bond with a team’s fans. Nancy Faust, the White Sox organist from 1970 until 2010, played from an open perch in the old Comiskey Park so she could take requests. While Faust favored old classics, she kept up with modern tastes, playing Jay-Z’s “Empire State of Mind” and Lady Gaga’s “Poker Face.”

From the first pitch until the last out (and even beyond), ballpark music-makers have changed the way fans experience games. Organists have long provided that musical backdrop, sometimes striking just a few notes to comment on the action on the field. As a rookie organist for the Milwaukee Braves, Jane Jarvis spontaneously played “Where, Oh Where, Has My Little Dog Gone?” when a member of the grounds crew got trapped under a tarp and tried to wiggle free. During an 11-0 blowout, the Dodgers’ Nancy Hefley turned to “Let’s Call the Whole Thing Off.”

Organists sometimes play as many as 1,000 songs a season. For years, they had the luxury of sampling long stretches of songs between innings and during pitching changes; later they were limited to 15 or 20 seconds at a time. No matter the length, the best used their skills to bond with a team’s fans. Nancy Faust, the White Sox organist from 1970 until 2010, played from an open perch in the old Comiskey Park so she could take requests. While Faust favored old classics, she kept up with modern tastes, playing Jay-Z’s “Empire State of Mind” and Lady Gaga’s “Poker Face.”

A few songs have become unofficial team anthems. Orioles fans have sung Denver’s “Thank God, I’m a Country Boy” for years. While it’s occasionally ceded the stage to rock hits including Bob Seger’s “Old Time Rock-’n-Roll,” the Beatles’ “Twist and Shout,” and the Isley Brothers’ “Shout,” it always comes back. “Country Boy,” said late Orioles pitcher Mike Flanagan, rallied the team late in games.

Stadium favorites also express exuberance for the game – and winning. Celebrations of the game – such as John Fogerty’s “Centerfield” and Terry Cashman’s “Talking Baseball”—invite fans to sing along. Cashman’s refrain “Willie, Mickey, and the Duke” has been rephrased to celebrate hometown heroes. All you need to do to know whether the Yankees won or lost a home game is to hear whose version of “New York, New York” is playing afterward. Frank Sinatra’s follows a win; Liza Minnelli’s comes after a loss.
And then there are the songs intended to boast and intimidate. Queen’s “We Will Rock You” became a standard at Shea Stadium in 1986, the year of the Mets’ most recent World Series title. White Sox fans sung Steam’s “Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye” when the Sox battered opponents in 1983.

These days, nearly every player enters the game or takes at-bats to his own theme song. Mariano Rivera, the legendary Yankees’ closer, entered to the strains of Metallica’s “Enter Sandman.” Intro songs can cause a stir – usually when lyrics violate baseball’s family-friendly ethos or delay the game. When the Red Sox’s Shane Victorino adopted Bob Marley’s “Three Little Birds” in 2013, the Fenway crowd answered the song’s familiar cry “Don’t worry ‘bout a thing” with its own optimistic cry, “‘Cause every little thing gonna be all right.” Major League Baseball issued an edict limiting intro songs to 15 seconds, technically reducing the possibility of that playful call-and-response.

Still, no song defines baseball more than the 1908 Tin Pan Alley hit “Take Me Out to the Ball Game,” written by Jack Norworth and Albert Von Tilzer. Inspired by an elevated train trip past the Polo Grounds in New York, the song tells the story of a lady who begs her boyfriend to take her to a game. That couple’s innocent love – “Cupid gave us such a shove / That we both slide for the home plate / In our baseball game of love” – matches America’s enduring love of the game.

During the 1934 World Series, a jug band consisting of players from the old St. Louis Cardinals “Gas House Gang” performed “Take Me Out to the Ball Game” at a game for the first time. In the Marx Brothers’ 1935 film A Night at the Opera, the orchestra segues seamlessly from Verdi’s Il trovatore to baseball’s greatest hit. By 1946, it was a regular part of the seventh-inning stretch, with fans rising to their feet to take part. (We’ll set aside the fact that behavioral psychologist B.F. Skinner taught pigeons to play it on a piano in 1950.)

Harry Caray made the song a part of his act in 1976 while working as a White Sox announcer, and when he moved across town to the Cubs in 1981, he took the bit with him to Wrigley Field. Since Caray’s death in 1998, a long train of notables – politicians, athletes, actors, comics, authors, and assorted locals – have taken on the task. The musical quality varies, but that’s not the point.

“We don’t care if you don’t sound like Sinatra,” said actor Jim Belushi, a diehard Cubs fan. Former Bears coach Mike Ditka shouted the lyrics as if he were berating his players at halftime. Still, the best performers rally the fans like no canned music can.