Jack Norworth / Albert Von Tilzer · Key of C · Public domain
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America's unofficial baseball anthem was written in 1908 by two men who, by most accounts, had never been to a professional ballgame. The vaudeville songwriter Jack Norworth scribbled the lyric on scrap paper during a New York subway ride after seeing a sign that read "Baseball Today - Polo Grounds," and Albert Von Tilzer set it to a lilting waltz melody. The full song tells the story of Katie Casey, a baseball-mad young woman who, when her beau offers to take her to a show, insists on the ballpark instead. The verses are nearly forgotten; the chorus became one of the most-sung pieces of music in America.
The song settled permanently into the game itself through the seventh-inning stretch, a tradition cemented when the broadcaster Harry Caray began leading crowds in the chorus at Chicago ballparks in the 1970s. Published in 1908, both words and music are long in the public domain, so this chart is yours to print, share, and sing at full volume.
A true waltz: count "one-two-three" with a firm downbeat, bass note on one and two light strums after it. The whole chorus lives on seven friendly open chords (C, G7, A7, Dm, D7, C7, and F), and most of it is just C to G7. The famous ending is the fun part: the chords punch once per word on "one, two, three strikes, you're out," so give each one its own strum and slow down into the final "ball game." Want to play the melody too? The matching guitar tab below uses the same key and chords.
Play the melody: Take Me Out to the Ball Game guitar tab with audio
Further reading: Take Me Out to the Ball Game (Wikipedia)
