Baseball’s Greatest Hits: The Music of Our National Game
The Fans

In the song shown here, a local coroner, a former umpire, and a jury of baseball fans certify that an unclaimed corpse has died of “baseball on the brain.” The corpse’s ghost goes on to haunt the ballpark at night, except during the off-season, when it spends the winter in Florida.

In this song, the Empire City Quartettte, a famous burlesque group, is featured by noted Tin Pan Alley music publisher, singer, and comedian Harry Cooper. The classic cover art personifies the coupling of baseball with popular American music.

In this song, the term “baseball bug” in the title was synonymous with “baseball fever.” Both expressions refer to a condition incurred by baseball fans in the early spring that only subsides after the last autumn leaves blow away.

The song shown here, published in 1913, is the earliest example of a baseball sheet music cover depicting a black baseball player. It would take more than three decades until black baseball fans could see black baseball players alongside white players in the major leagues.