Audio
And Nothing Less Extras: Suffrage and Baseball
Transcript
R: Hey Rosario have you done the first pitch at a baseball game?
(Riff on this)
R: Well everybody knows Take Me Out to the Ballgame.
[Harry Caray audio]
Those of us old enough can remember Harray Caray doing it before the Cubs games. But it was actually written in 1908. And so you probably know what I’m going to tell you…
RD: It was written by a suffragist.
R: Close! It was inspired by a suffragist. This is a bit of history that was dug up by a man named George Boziwick who was the chief of the music division of the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts.
The song was written by Jack Norworth. And this historian says that Jack Norworth wrote it as an ode to his girlfriend, Trixie Friganza. She was a vaudeville actress, and yes, a suffragist.
[Trixie clip ]
Friganza was very involved in the women’s rights movement. She attended demonstrations and marches, donated money and gave speeches of her own. At one rally in New York City in 1908 she said, “I do not believe any man – at least no man I know – is better fitted to form a political opinion than I am.”
Friganza met Jack Norworth, also a well-known vaudeville performer, and they hit it off. Problem was - Jack was married - to another actress.
RD: Oh boy
R: Yes I know. And this made the press. But they were in love. And love makes you write songs. And one day while riding the subway, the story goes that Norworth saw a sign that read “Baseball Today - Polo Grounds.” And the muse hit, and he wrote some lyrics on the back of an envelope. You can see them at the National Baseball Hall of Fame.
RD: So that’s when he wrote the song we all know? What did that have to do with Trixie Friganza?
R: Well sort of. The chorus is basically the same. “Take me out to the ball game Take me out with the crowd; And so on...with the bit about the peanuts and cracker jacks.
But there are other verses most people have never heard or seen. It goes like this
Katie Casey saw all the games, Knew the players by their first names. Told the umpire he was wrong, All along, Good and strong. When the score was just two to two, Katie Casey knew what to do, Just to cheer up the boys she knew, She made the gang sing this song:
Historians like George Boziwick believe Kate Casey was Trixie Friganza. This is a message of inclusion, with women part of the rooting crowd, with women being good and strong. This is Trixie, people think.
RD: Wow. So what ever happened to their illicit affair?
R: Well, the same year that he wrote “Take Me Out to the Ballgame”, Jack Norworth did divorce his wife. And he got married the following week. But NOT to Trixie Friganza.
RD: What!?
R: I know. He married his Ziegfeld Follies co-star. But Trixie went on to star in over 20 films and marry. And I like to think that if enough of us think about her and her fight for equality when we sing this song, she will truly have the last laugh.
Description
What do baseball and suffrage have in common? Listen to find out!
Duration
4 minutes, 20 seconds
Credit
PRX, WSCC, NPS
Date Created
08/26/2020
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