Vintage Song Sunday: Love is Like a Baseball Game

Formed in Philadelphia in 1960, the smooth stylings of The Intruders were a part of the development known as the Philadelphia Soul movement, which included artists such as The Delfonics, Patti LaBelle, The O'Jays, The Stylistics and even Daryl Hall & John Oates.

Consisting of lush musical arrangements combined with funk, and often strings and horns, the Philly Soul movement was the perfect arrangement for any love song.

So this Sunday night, pull the curtains closed, dim the lights, put some candles around the room, order out a few hot dogs with mustard and a pickle (no ketchup please), and put on today's Baseball Song of the Day...

"Love is Like a Baseball Game" by The Intruders:



The song hit #26 on the billboard charts back in 1968.

BSOD 4/11/2010: Love is Like a Baseball Game
Artist: The Intruders
Released: 1968

Love is Like a Baseball Game Lyrics

Love is just like a baseball game
Three strikes you’re out

Up to bat
I thought I hit a love run
But to my surprise
I found I didn’t hit none

Threw her love so fast
She put me in a daze
Never knew that love
Could come so many ways

Strike one -- She took me by surprise
Strike two -- Right in front of my eyes
Strike three -- Oh, I was out without a doubt
Oh, I was out

Love is just like a baseball game
Three strikes you’re out
Whether you win or lose
Love is just like a baseball game
Three strikes you’re out
Everybody’s got to pay some due

Oh, I’m up to bat
I’m gonna try love one more time

I really love this girl
And I’m gonna make her mine

I ain’t never won
When I played a baseball game
Now it seems that love
And baseball are just the same

Strike one -- Oh, she did it again
Strike two -- Looks like I’m never gonna win
Strike three -- Oh, I was out without a doubt
I was out

Love is just like a baseball game
Three strikes you’re out
Whether you win or lose
Love is just like a baseball game
Three strikes you’re out
Everybody’s got to pay some due
-- You got to pay some due

Love is just like a baseball game
Three strikes you’re out
-- Three strikes you’re out whether you win or lose
Love is just like a baseball game
Three strikes you’re out
Everybody’s got to pay some due
-- Got to say it again

Love is just like a baseball game
Three strikes you’re out
-- Three strikes you’re out whether you win or lose

Related Links:
http://www.soulwalking.co.uk/Intruders.html

*not to be confused with the Vancouver, Canada  Rock and Roll band "The Intruders"

Vintage Song Sunday: A Dying Cub Fan's Last Request

Many great things in life can be bought with a beer. Need help in moving your furniture from one apartment to the next? Get some beer for your friends. Need the cable guy to add a lil sump'n sump'n, offer up a beer.

For folk singer Steve Goodman, in the early 1970's, he was able to buy the attention of a young Arlo Guthrie with a beer. Guthrie like many artists had people coming up to him and wanting to play a song for him to listen. Guthrie agreed to listen to Goodman's song as long as Steve bought him a beer, and for as long as it took him to drink the beer. The song was "The City of New Orleans", the terrific rambling tune of a train that garnered Guthrie a top 20 hit in '72, and that was later covered by Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson amongst many others and earned Goodman a posthumous Grammy in 1985.

A true Chicagoan, Goodman was born in 1948 on Chicago's North Side. His love of music led him to start writing songs and he often performed during his teenage years while at Maine East High School, after his parents moved to the North Suburbs. Staying close to home, he went to the University of Illinois and then staying closer to his dream, he left college to pursue a career in music.

Growing up on the North Side of Chicago, Goodman also had another love besides music and that was baseball and The Chicago Cubs. He wrote three songs about the Cubs: "A Dying Cubs Fan's Last Request", "When the Cubs Go Marching In", and "Go Cubs Go."

Well known for his die hard fan loyalty to the Cubs and popular for playing around town, the Cubs were to have Goodman perform the "Star Spangled Banner" before their first playoff game in 39 years in 1984, however Goodman was battling Leukemia since the late 60's and unfortunately he passed away four days before the Cubs clinched the playoff spot. Jimmy Buffet filled in for Goodman and dedicated the song to him.  The Cubs would win the first two games of the playoffs vs the San Diego Padres, and then go on to lose the next three in heartbreaking fashion.



In 1988, Goodman's wishes from his song were realized when his ashes were spread at Wrigley Field.  This is  one of the most accurate songs about the Chicago Cubs and what they can do to your heartstrings, time and time again.  Today's Old Time, Famous, Vintage, Heartfelt, Sad Yet Beautiful Baseball Song of the Day; "A Dying Cub Fan's Last Request" by Steve Goodman.  All Cub fans, raise an Old Style beer to you every time this song is heard.

It's been 101 years since the Cubs won the World Series.  I think there's been a lot of requests.  If you think about it, nobody is alive that last saw them win the World Series.

BSOD 4/4/2010: A Dying Cub Fan's Last Request
Artist: Steve Goodman
Released: 1979

By the shore's of old Lake Michigan
Where the "hawk wind" blows so cold
An old Cub fan lay dying
In his midnight hour that tolled
Round his bed, his friends had all gathered
They knew his time was short
And on his head they put this bright blue cap
From his all-time favorite sport
He told them, "Its late and its getting dark in here"
And I know its time to go
But before I leave the line-up
Boys, there's just one thing I'd like to know

Do they still play the blues in Chicago
When baseball season rolls around
When the snow melts away,
Do the Cubbies still play
In their ivy-covered burial ground
When I was a boy they were my pride and joy
But now they only bring fatigue
To the home of the brave
The land of the free
And the doormat of the National League

Told his friends "You know the law of averages says:
Anything will happen that can"
That's what it says
"But the last time the Cubs won a National League pennant
Was the year we dropped the bomb on Japan"
The Cubs made me a criminal
Sent me down a wayward path
They stole my youth from me
(that's the truth)
I'd forsake my teachers
To go sit in the bleachers
In flagrant truancy

and then one thing led to another
and soon I'd discovered alcohol, gambling, dope
football, hockey, lacrosse, tennis
But what do you expect,
When you raise up a young boy's hopes
And then just crush 'em like so many paper beer cups
Year after year after year
after year, after year, after year, after year, after year
'Til those hopes are just so much popcorn
for the pigeons beneath the 'L' tracks to eat
He said, "You know I'll never see Wrigley Field,
anymore before my eternal rest
So if you have your pencils and your score cards ready,
and I'll read you my last request

He said, "Give me a double header funeral in Wrigley Field
On some sunny weekend day (no lights)
Have the organ play the "National Anthem"
and then a little 'na, na, na, na, hey hey, hey, Goodbye'
Make six bullpen pitchers, carry my coffin
and six ground keepers clear my path
Have the umpires bark me out at every base
In all their holy wrath

Its a beautiful day for a funeral, Hey Ernie lets play two!
Somebody go get Jack Brickhouse to come back,
and conduct just one more interview
Have the Cubbies run right out into the middle of the field,
Have Keith Moreland drop a routine fly
Give everybody two bags of peanuts and a frosty malt
And I'll be ready to die

Build a big fire on home plate out of your Louisville Sluggers baseball bats
And toss my coffin in
Let my ashes blow in a beautiful snow
From the prevailing 30 mile an hour southwest wind
When my last remains go flying over the left-field wall
Will bid the bleacher bums ad eu
And I will come to my final resting place, out on Waveland Avenue

The dying man's friends told him to cut it out
They said stop it that's an awful shame
He whispered, "Don't Cry, we'll meet by and by near the Heavenly Hall of Fame
He said, "I've got season's tickets to watch the Angels now,
So its just what I'm going to do
He said, "but you the living, you're stuck here with the Cubs,
So its me that feels sorry for you!"

And he said, "Ahh Play, play that lonesome losers tune,
That's the one I like the best"
And he closed his eyes, and slipped away
What we got is the Dying Cub Fan's Last Request
And here it is

Do they still play the blues in Chicago
When baseball season rolls around
When the snow melts away,
Do the Cubbies still play
In their ivy-covered burial ground
When I was a boy they were my pride and joy
But now they only bring fatigue
To the home of the brave
The land of the free
And the doormat of the National League

---------------------------------

Oh, and if you're from Chicago and never heard, "The Lincoln Park Pirates" about the Lincoln Towing Service, it's a must listen for anyone who's been plundered and pilfered by them.

Sources:
http://www.stevegoodman.net
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Goodman

Vintage Song Sunday: Let's Go, Go-Go White Sox

The year was 1959 and they enthralled the city of Chicago with their hustling and bustling scrappy play, fantastic defense, and their speed.  The Chicago White Sox were battling the Cleveland Indians for the division and were finally making amends for the "Black Sox Scandal" of 1919.

Venezuelan shortstop Luis Aparicio (who's uniform number 11 was just un-retired in 2010 for slick fielding Omar Vizquel), his partner in action Nellie Fox at second base, power at first base with Ted "Big Klu" Kluszewsk and the workhorse in starting pitcher Early Wynn.

The peppy play of the White Sox that year inspired a song to be written by one of their very own; former White Sox minor leaguer Al Trace as well as his friend Walter "Li'l Wally" Jagiello.  Trace and Jagiello brought the song to the attention of Captain Stubby (Tom C. Fouts who also voiced "Little Sprout" in the Green Giant commercials) and the Buccaneers, who were known to be a popular country band playing in and around Chicagoland, and the song was recorded and released on Jagiello's record label; Drum Boy Records.

Both the song (which didn't sell very well in 1959) and the season, didn't turn out exactly as planned as the White Sox didn't fare too well in the World Series as the Sox lost to the Los Angeles Dodgers 4 games to 2.

However fast forward 46 years later, and in 2005 the vintage / retro feel inspired a whole new generation when it was played at U.S. Cellar Field on the jumbotron, as well as was played during FOX tv's playoff broadcasts of the White Sox in their historic playoff run, in which the White Sox dominated the playoffs winning 11 of 12 games against the Red Sox, Angels, and Astros.

BSOD: 3/28/2010: Let's Go, Go-Go White Sox
Artist: Captain Stubby and the Buccaneers
Released: 1959

           Video Montage to : Let's Go, Go-Go White Sox



Let's Go, Go-Go White Sox lyrics

White Sox! White Sox!
Go-Go White Sox!

Let's go, Go-Go White Sox
We're with you all the way!
You're always in there fighting,
And you do your best.
We're glad to have you out there in the Middle West.

We're gonna root-root-root-root White Sox
And cheer you on to victory
When we're in the stands,
We'll make those rafters ring;
All through the season,
You will hear us sing.
Let's go, Go-Go White Sox,
Chicago's proud of you!

White Sox! White Sox!
Go-Go White Sox!

Root-Root-Root for the White Sox
We'll cheer you on to victory
When we're in the stands,
We'll make those rafters ring;
All through the season,
You will hear us sing

Let's go, Go-Go White Sox,
Chicago's proud of you! (Play ball!)
White Sox! White Sox!
Go-Go White Sox!
Let's go, Go-Go White Sox!
Chicago is proud of you!

Vintage Song Sunday: Say Hey (The Willie Mays Song)

When one thinks of Willie Mays, instantly his famous over-the-shoulder catch in Game 3 of the 1954 World Series comes to mind (view it in old fashioned flip-book style here).  Almost the equal to that catch, when one hears Willie's name, the ever popular song "Say Hey (The Willie Mays Song)" comes to mind.  Back in 1954, three songs were released about the "Say Hey Kid" (rumored to have been given that name because he didn't know or remember his teammates names during his rookie season, and he often just said, "hey man, say hey man.").  Only one of those three songs released about Willie that year, captured the emotions and joy that Willie inspired in all those that watched him, and that song was by the Alabama swing, rhythm and blues band; The Treniers.

The Treniers were one of the pioners in swing and rock and roll music dating back to the 1940's and consisted of identical twin brothers; Claude & Cliff Trenier, studio musicians, and in later years additional Trenier brothers.  They had a Top 10 hit in 1951 with "Go Go Go" and also appeared in film ("Don't Knock the Rock", "The Girl Can't Help It", and "Calypso Heat Wave").



The 1954 song...in which the audio of "Say Hey!   Say Who?  Say Willie!" that is now immortalized in just about any film or tv clip was also conducted by the now legendary producer Quincy Jones.  The Treniers often added humor to their songs, and this was evident by Willie joining in the recording and discussing his whom should catch the ball when it is hit into left field ("..that's Monte Irvin's ball").


Baseball Song of the Day: Say Hey (The Willie Mays Song)
Artist: The Treniers & Willie Mays
Released: 1954

Vintage Song Sunday: Van Lingle Mungo

Sundays are a day of reflection and relaxation (if they're not - they should be), so let's take a look back into the archives and check out some classic old school vintage retro baseball songs.  Let's start with a song by Dave Frishberg titled "Van Lingle Mungo", which some say was a precursor to Billy Joel's rambling "We didn't start the Fire".

Van Mungo was a four time All Star pitcher who took the mound for the Brooklyn Dodgers from 1931-1941 and then finished his career with the New York Giants, playing for them in 1942-1943 and in 1945.  He won a total of 120 games during his career, with most of those wins coming with the Dodgers and before injuring his arm in 1937.  During his time with the Dodgers, he led the NL in strikeouts in 1936 (238 K's).

Dave Frishberg, born in 1933, is a four time Grammy Nominated Jazz pianist, vocalist and composer, who's songs have been ingrained into the pop culture psyche.  He has spent his historic career playing music with the likes of Manhattan Transfer, Gene Krupa, and Zoot Sims, as well as having his songs covered by vocal legends such as Rosemary Clooney, Diana Krall, and Mel Tormé.   Even if some of those names are unknown to you, you more than likely still know one of his most popular creations, the Saturday morning Schoolhouse Rock sensation, "I'm Just a Bill" in which Mr. Frishberg penned the music and lyrics.

Reading through a copy of the Baseball Encyclopedia, Mr. Frishberg found inspiration in the sound of the name Van Lingle Mungo and included them into a lounge style bossa nova song that he was writing at the time.  It's unique sound and uses of the names therein, has turned this song into a cult classic.

Vintage Song Sunday: Van Lingle Mungo

By Dave Frishberg

Released: 1970

Van Lingle Mungo Lyrics

HEENEY MAJESKI

JOHNNY GEE

EDDIE JOOST

JOHNNY PESKY

THORNTON LEE

DANNY GARDELLA

VAN LINGLE MUNGO

WHITEY KUROWSKI

MAX LANIER

EDDIE WAITKUS

JOHNNY VANDER MEER

BOB ESTALELLA

VAN LINGLE MUNGO

AUGIE BERGAMO

SIGMUND JAKUCKI

BIG JOHNNY MIZE

and

BARNEY MCCOSKY

HAL TROSKY

AUGIE GALAN

and

PINKY MAY

STAN HACK

and

FRENCHY BORDAGARAY

PHIL CAVARRETTA

GEORGE MCQUINN

HOWARD POLLET

and

EARLY WYNN

ROY CAMPANELLA

VAN LINGLE MUNGO

AUGIE BERGAMO

SIGMUND JAKUCKI

BIG JOHNNY MIZE

and

BARNEY MCCOSKY

HAL TROSKY

JOHN ANTONELLI

FERRIS FAIN

FRANKIE CROSETTI

JOHNNY SAIN

HARRY BRECHEEN

and

LOU BOUDREAU

FRANKIE GUSTINE

and

CLAUDE PASSEAU

EDDIE BASINSKI

ERNIE LOMBARDI

HUEY MULCAHY

VAN LINGLE

Related Links:
http://www.davefrishberg.net
http://www.schoolhouserock.tv