Take Me Out To The Ball Game - The 7th Inning Stretch

I always remember the very first day when I went to my very first baseball game. I guess most people can. Now I can't actually remember the team that the Kansas City Royals played, but I think that perhaps Brett Saberhagen may have been pitching around that time, so I suppose you would expect it to be memorable anyway, so it wasn't just because of the 7th inning stretch.

The 7th inning stretch memorable? You silly little boy! Well, I wasn't a kid going to my first ball game with my dad. Is that what you thought? I was almost thirty, and this ritual of everyone standing at the 7th innings and then an organ firing up to accompany everybody singing, really took me by surprise, because at first I thought we had to sing the National Anthem again!

I was later to find out that Rush Limbaugh, a radio broadcaster I used to listen to on the way to work whom I found quite a colorful character with a lot of bravado, would frequently make reference to his previous claim to fame of being the Kansas City Royals stadium announcer. How that could compare to the arguably great political radio show that he broadcasted I don't know, but maybe once a baseball fan, always a baseball fan. No doubt he needed a good 7th inning stretch too and a quick guzzle of his super delicious Plano Snapple, to tune his vocals for the KC fight back. Not that it happened that often surprisingly to say.