This card is a single card insert in 2008 Topps Updates & Highlights set. I got it in an 18-card pack I picked up on a whim.As you can see the song was originally published in 1908, so this is the 100th anniversary of the song.
There is a long piece on Wikipedia about the song. What I thought was interesting is that the guy who wrote the words had never been to a baseball game before he wrote the song. In fact, he didn't go to his first game until 32 years after he wrote the song! The composer hadn't been to a game either.
The song was a big hit in 1908, with several recordings having been made.
The big surprise to me is that the song has verses. The familiar refrain, is just that, a refrain, or chorus. I don't believe that I've
ever heard the verses.There are almost 150 versions available on iTunes. I sampled a bunch of them and none seem to have the verses. Most of the versions are pretty short, about 2 minutes long, not enough time for verses.
After rooting around on the Internet for awhile, I realized that I had heard the verses, on Ken Burn's Baseball sung by Carly Simon.
Here is a site I found that has Simon's version (pretty much the original 1908 lyrics) and another version based on the 1927 lyrics.
Enjoy.
