Baseball and Music Celebrated in Free Family Exhibition Opening July 11 at The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts

A grand slam of artifacts celebrating the music and magic of baseball will be on display at The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts starting Friday, July 11. The exhibition “Take Me Out to the Ball Game”: 100 Years of Music, Musicians, and the National Pastime marks the 100th anniversary of the song “Take Me Out to the Ball Game,” baseball’s unofficial anthem and the third most often sung song in America. This exhibition for baseball fans of all ages pays tribute to the sport and the musicians who love it, including such important composers as Charles Ives, William Schuman, Irving Berlin, and George M. Cohan, as well as athlete/musicians like 1880s player/actor and baseball’s first superstar Mike Kelly, and St. Louis Cardinals 1930s star Pepper Martin, whose band, the Mississippi Mudcats, will serenade visitors in an original film clip. Images and artifacts of past and present player/performers like Tony Conigliaro and Ben Broussard will be featured, as well as former Yankee centerfielder Bernie Williams, who is also a guitar-playing, jazz-recording artist. There will be rarely seen original photographs of former Yankees Mickey Mantle and Joe DiMaggio, and even the Yankee jersey worn by opera star and baseball fan Robert Merrill, who frequently opened Yankee games with the National Anthem.

 “Take Me Out to the Ball Game” is on view through October 31, 2008 in the Library’s Vincent Astor Gallery. Admission is free. The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center, is located at 40 Lincoln Center Plaza. For further information, telephone 212.870.1630 or visit the Library’s website at www.nypl.org

“The diverse range of the Library’s collections allows us to cover baseball in a way in which it is not usually seen. For example, where else can one view original artifacts and learn that Babe Ruth was probably sold by Boston Red Sox owner Harry Frazee to the New York Yankees to finance the Broadway production of No, No, Nanette?,” said Jacqueline Z. Davis, the Barbara G. and Lawrence A. Fleischman Executive Director of The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts. “We hope that New Yorkers and city visitors will stop by the Library this summer for a front row perspective on the music, dance, and theater inspired by baseball.”

The 300 items on display, at least half of which have never before been exhibited, include scores, lantern slides, photographs, posters, postcards, recordings, and original sheet music, as well as player cards, coins, advertisements, cereal boxes, and other food-related items. Among the exhibition highlights are the original 1908 sheet music for “Take Me Out to the Ball Game”; the first recording of the song, made in 1908 by the Hayden Quartet; a legendary Honus Wagner baseball card; and a rare first edition of “The Star-Spangled Banner,”which has opened every baseball game since the World War II era.A photograph of the George M. Cohan baseball team at the Polo Grounds in 1910 includes Cohan himself and DeWolfe Hopper, known for over 40 years for his recitations of “Casey at the Bat” on stage and in film. The 1907 music score Cubs vs. Giants (A Take Off) by Charles Ives will be exhibited for the first time. Two versions of Irving Berlin’s “Along Came Ruth” will be on display: the original 1914 romantic version about a girl named Ruth and the 1926 version in which Berlin changed the words to celebrate the success of the Bambino. The original 78 rpm Decca disk, “Did You See Jackie Robinson Hit that Ball?” by Buddy Johnson and His Orchestra will give listeners an emotional tug by recalling this tribute to the player who broke baseball’s color barrier in 1947. Also featured is the 1966 book The New York Mets Official Sing Along Baseball Songs, selected and arranged by long-time Mets organist Jane Jarvis, whose papers are in the Library’s Music Division.

The All American Girls Professional Baseball League is represented by such songs as “The All-American Girls League Song” and “The Racine Belles March,” and the unpublished fifth draft of the screenplay A League of Their Own, as well as advertisements and photographs for that movie. Clippings and photographs provide a glimpse of the connections among music, musicians, and Negro League baseball. “Let’s Fill the Yankee Stadium,” a display ad in the New Amsterdam News,documents the July 5, 1930 doubleheader between the New York Lincoln Giants and the Baltimore Black Sox that opened Yankee Stadium to Negro League play for the benefit of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters. The occasion was celebrated with continuous music and special races between the games.

The exhibition is arranged in the shape of a baseball diamond and is organized around the baseball anthem’s lyrics, each representing a position on the field. It starts with “Take Me out to the Ball Game,” which features the earliest sheet music, recordings and promotional material for the song. “Take Me out with the Crowd" focuses on being at the game, with its large crowds, the seventh inning stretch, and the variety of actors, musicians, politicians and celebrities who not only loved, promoted and attended the games, but sometimes played it themselves. "Buy Me Some Peanuts and Cracker Jack" looks at baseball and the promotion of the game through food cards, tobacco cards, and a variety of other products. "Root for the Home Team" features memorabilia from New York’s historic baseball teams and their organists.

 "Take Me Out to the Ball Game”: 100 Years of Music, Musicians, and the National Pastime is curated by George Boziwick, Chief of the Music Research Division, with Tema Hecht, who also works in the Music Division of The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts. The exhibition features material from many of The New York Public Library’s collections, including the Photography, Print and Arents collections of the Humanities and Social Sciences Library; the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture and The New York Public Library Picture Collection.The exhibition also includes digital audio and print materials drawn from the holdings of the National Baseball Hall of Fame Library and Museum, Cooperstown, New York; materials on loan from Mrs. Robert Merrill and unique items borrowed from the private collection of Andy Strasberg, who, with Robert Thompson and Tim Wiles, wrote the recently published book Baseball’s Greatest Hit: The Story of Take Me Out to the Ball Game.

About The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts

The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts houses the world’s most extensive combination of circulating, reference, and rare archival collections in its field. Its divisions are the Circulating Collections, Jerome Robbins Dance Division, Music Division, Billy Rose Theatre Division, and the Rodgers and Hammerstein Archives of Recorded Sound. The materials in its collections are available free of charge, as are a wide range of special programs, including exhibitions, seminars, and performances. An essential resource for everyone with an interest in the arts – whether professional or amateur – the Library is known particularly for its prodigious collections of non-book materials such as historic recordings, videotapes, autograph manuscripts, correspondence, sheet music, stage designs, press clippings, programs, posters, and photographs.

About The New York Public Library

The New York Public Library was created in 1895 with the consolidation of the private libraries of John Jacob Astor and James Lenox with the Samuel Jones Tilden Trust. The Library provides free and open access to its physical and electronic collections and information, as well as to its services. It comprises four research centers – the Humanities and Social Sciences Library; The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts; the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture; and the Science, Industry and Business Library – and 87 Branch Libraries in the Bronx, Manhattan, and Staten Island. Research and circulating collections combined total more than 50 million items, including materials for the visually impaired. In addition, each year the Library presents thousands of exhibitions and public programs, which include classes in technology, literacy, and English as a second language. The Library serves some 16 million patrons who come through its doors annually and another 25 million users internationally, who access collections and services through the NYPL website, www.nypl.org.

“Take Me Out to the Ball Game”: 100 Years of Music, Musicians, and the National Pastimeis on view from July 11 through October 31, 2008 at The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center, Vincent Astor Gallery, 40 Lincoln Center Plaza.Exhibition hours are:Monday and Thursday from 12:00 p.m. to 8 p.m.; Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday from 11:00 a.m. to 6 p.m.; and Saturday from 10 a.m. to 6:00 p.m.; closed Sundays and holidays. Admission is free. For exhibition information, call 212.870.1630 or visit the Library’s website at www.nypl.org.

 The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts gratefully acknowledges the leadership support of Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman. Additional support for exhibitions has been provided by Judy R. and Alfred A. Rosenberg and the Miriam and Harold Steinberg Foundation.

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Contact: Rima Corben| 212.592.7710 | rcorben@nypl.org

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