Monday Musical Memory: Take Me Out to the Ball Game

My late husband Bill was an avid baseball fan. His favorite team was the Colorado Rockies, and he stood by them always. They lost many games over the last few years of Bill’s life. At the end of a losing game, he was so frustrated sometimes that he would say, “The Rockies are rotten to the core.” At the start of the next game though, his ear was glued to the radio, anticipating the first pitch. Bill’s adoration of this team inspired a character in my new novel, The Red Dress, coming soon.

A year after he passed, I had an opportunity to attend a Colorado Rockies game. I was visiting relatives in Colorado Springs, and my uncle from California, an avid Los Angeles Dodgers fan, was also there. He had tickets to see the Dodgers play the Rockies at Coors Field in Denver.

So, I went with him and my uncle and aunt in Colorado Springs, and my cousins from Denver joined us. Because of my limited vision, I couldn’t see much of the action, and I forgot to bring a radio with headphones so I could hear the play-by-play, but since my cousins were Rockies fans, I could tell which team was ahead by who was happy. As the evening wore on, my uncle became more jubilant and my cousins more depressed.

I felt close to Bill, sitting in those stands. If he were still alive, he would have called me a million times from the nursing home to discuss the game and perhaps hear the roar of the crowd over the phone as well as on the radio. If he were actually at the game, he would have stayed till the bitter end, which my California uncle did since the Dodgers were winning, but I left with my Colorado Springs kin soon after the seventh-inning stretch.

Speaking of the seventh-inning stretch, the song I’m singing today is in commemoration of the opening of the National Baseball Hall of Fame eighty years ago on June 12^th. The song, which is usually sung at the ballpark during the seventh inning stretch,  was recorded live at Elm Croft, an assisted living facility where I entertain for their monthly birthday parties. I accompanied myself on guitar since a piano wasn’t available. Click the link below to hear it.

 

Take Me Out to the Ball Game

 

How about you? Have you ever attended a major or minor or even a little league baseball game? Did your team win?

 

My Books

 

My Ideal Partner: How I Met, Married, and Cared for the Man I Loved Despite Debilitating Odds

That’s Life: New and Selected Poems

How to Build a better Mousetrap: Recollections and Reflections of a Family Caregiver

We Shall Overcome

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