Echoes in Eternity

Today is opening day of the 132nd season of professional baseball. That's right, the summer that General Custer was getting himself cut to shreds at Little Bighorn the Chicago Cubs were fielding grounders and stealing bases for the first time (in 1876, the Cubs were called the Chicago White Stockings). The game of professional baseball has transformed from that initial 8-team league to the now 30-team combined National and American leagues. While such stars as Albert Spalding (who later founded the Spalding sporting goods store) made a mere $40 a week back then ($700 a week by today's standards), today's baseball stars make close to a million dollars per week. Likewise, the founding players used bare hands to field while today's players spend $300 for a good leather glove. While much of the nation's pastime may have changed, the theme song has been the same for nearly 100 years. Take Me Out to the Ballgame is profiled this week by Mark Steyn in his ongoing "Song of the Week" series.

Today, 99 years after he wrote it, “Take Me Out To The Ball Game” is the third most performed song in the country, after “Happy Birthday” and the national anthem. It’s part of the soundtrack of America. And, as Sinatra put it on that long ago radio show, "as long as our national pastime is played by free men in a free land", we’ll be singing Jack Norworth’s words to Albert Von Tilzer’s tune – one, two, three strikes, over and over and over, but never out.