My Top Ten Baseball Songs of All Time

Over the years hundreds of songs have been written about America's pastime but only a handful have managed to remain in the consciousness of baseball fans. I'm rarely conscious, but when I am I like to think back to the good old days when I was a kid playing ball all summer long and hoping to someday play for the Cubs. Some of my favorite baseball songs help conjure up those memories and make me want to put on my baseball cap, grab my glove and run out onto the field. Then I remember I'm in my 50s and instead I lay back in my recliner and take a nap. After I wake up, I watch the Cubs lose and throw things at the TV. It's so much fun being a Cub fan.

Anyway, here is a countdown of my ten favorite baseball songs...

10. Music from "The Natural"

Randy Newman's Oscar-nominated score from the 1984 film The Natural is loaded with great moments, but the best comes when Roy Hobbs, played by Robert Redford, smashes the mammoth homerun that shatters the lights in right field sending sparks flying and winning the pennant for the New York Knights.

Look and listen as Hobbs comes through in the clutch.

9. Talkin' Baseball

Terry Cashman's 1981 song was inspired by the Hall-of-Fame centerfielders who played for New York's three teams (Giants, Yankees and Dodgers) in the 1950s: Willie Mays, Mickey Mantle and Duke Snider. Dozens of greats from baseball's long history are named in the song, but it's the line "Especially Willie, Mickey and the Duke" that everyone remembers. Cashman also recorded versions of the same song for various teams throughout the major leagues, altering the words to fit each team's history.

8. Did You See Jackie Robinson Hit That Ball?

Written by Buddy Johnson and recorded with the Count Basie Orchestra, this 1949 song lives on as a tribute to the man who courageously broke baseball's color barrier. Evident in its production is the pride Robinson brought to America's black citizens as he became one of the game's greatest stars.

Click here to see Jackie Robinson hit that ball.

7. Go Cubs Go

Written in 1984 by the late Steve Goodman this song was resurrected in recent years and is now played at Wrigley Field following each Cubs victory while happy Cub fans stand and loudly sing along. Then we all hit the bars in Wrigleyville, get drunk and party. Cubs success is so fleeting, we take advantage of every opportunity to celebrate.

6. Say Hey (The Willie Mays Song)

In 1954 the New York Giants were on their way to a World Series championship behind the spectacular play of star centerfielder "Say Hey" Willie Mays. Already considered baseball's most exciting player, the 23-year-old Mays was fast becoming an American icon as evidenced by this song recorded by the Treniers and featuring Mays himself.

Get a load of this toe-tapping ditty.

5. Joltin' Joe DiMaggio

Following Joe DiMaggio's record-breaking 56-game hitting streak, Alan Courtney and Ben Horner paid tribute to The Yankee Clipper with this 1941 song recorded by Betty Bonney and the Les Brown Orchestra. All these years later, DiMaggio's streak is still perhaps the most revered record in all of sports.

See this clip for a sample of Joltin' Joe DiMaggio.

4. It's a Beautiful Day for a Ballgame

In the '60s, Cubs radio broadcasts always started with the opening line of this song from the Harry Simione Songsters: "Let's go! Batter up! We're taking the afternoon off." Hearing this tune again always brings back wonderful memories of when I was young and naïve and thought the Cubs would one day win a World Series. Boy was I stupid!

3. Centerfield

What kid hasn't dreamed of one day playing centerfield for his favorite baseball team? From the album of the same name, this rockin' 1985 hit by former Credence Clearwater Revival front man John Fogerty has become a ballpark favorite. Just like Fogerty, I believed as a kid that one day I would be able to tell the world, "Look at me, I can be centerfield."

Check out this live version of Fogerty performing Centerfield.

2. A Dying Cub Fan's Last Request

In this painfully funny 1983 song, Steve Goodman again pays tribute to his favorite ball club. Any longtime Cub fan can relate to the cynical words of a man who has endured a lifetime of hope and optimism shattered year-after-year by the team that plays "in their ivy-covered burial ground." Despite his dire situation, the dying man tells his friends not to cry for him because "you the living, you're stuck here with the Cubs, so it's me that feels sorry for you."

Click here to see Goodman performing his song shortly before he died.

1. Take Me Out to the Ball Game

Any list of baseball songs has to start with this one. Written in 1908 by two men (Jack Norworth and Albert Von Tilzer) who up to that point had never seen a baseball game, Take Me Out to the Ball Game is now sung and played during virtually every 7^th inning stretch of every game in every ballpark in America. By now you'd think everyone on the planet knows the words to this classic, but not so.

Just take a look at this train wreck from a game played at Wrigley Field in 2003.

Sources:

YouTube

Wikipedia

Fifty years of enduring Cubs baseball