Dept. of Sepia-Toned Tunes

Speaking of hit summertime oldies, Andrew Druckenbrod's article about the history of "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" is pretty interesting. Three things I did not know that I find interesting:

1. The song, written in 1908, has been a totem of nostalgia for a good several decades now. Since today's baseball nostalgia usually calls back to the 1930s and 1940s, I find it interesting to consider that there was baseball nostalgia then, too. I thought it was a recent-ish phenomenon, but no, baseball just has always clamored for nostalgia, apparently.

2. The song's '30s resurgence was driven by a promotion-minded guy who'd acquired the copyright and started hawking it around to stadiums.

3. Singing the song during the 7th inning stretch at major-league ballparks only started up in the late 1970s, when White Sox owner Bill Veeck started having Harry Caray sing it through the PA system. I didn't know it was this recent. Evidently this caught on somewhat more widely than Disco Demolition Night.

In more current baseball news, as I type this, the Pirates are down 7–0 in the third against Tampa Bay. In his major league debut, Jimmy Barthmeier is doing a plausible impression of someone who's been in the starting rotation for a while.

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So Pete's visiting New Haven this weekend, which should be fun, but I really need to clean my apartment in the next two hours before he gets here (hence the procrastinatory Friday night blogging). I just finished painting my bedroom today (Behr brand Satisficient Off-White #350-E1) so I'm shorthanded on rooms, plus all my stuff is all over the place. Maybe could have planned it better? Dunno. Anyway, happy weekend to everyone else.