Take Me Out to the Ballgame Turns 100 - Jenn

I'm not going to talk about last night's game since it was so depressing and Dad covered it very well. I'm not even going to berate Timlin, because honestly, I'm bored doing it. You all know how I feel about him and last night he proved yet again why. So, I'm turning to something I think it pretty cool - the song "Take Me Out to the Ballgame".

If you've ever been to a baseball game you know that usually during the 7th inning stretch the grounds crew make their way onto the field and lead the fans in a rousing rendition of the baseball theme. What you may not know is that the song turns 100 years old this year. It was written and composed by Jack Norworth and Albert Von Tilzer back in 1908 and is now as classic as those peanuts and cracker jack the song mentions.

To celebrate the song's birthday, ESPN's "Baseball Tonight" is doing a battle of the bands. Starting last night and for the next two weeks 9 different bands will perform their version of the song on the nightly baseball show. Then after the final band has performed, you the fan, can pick your favorite starting at 8 pm ET on June 29th. The top three will be announced on July 6th and the winner will be revealed on July 13th.

Here are the bands vying for the top spot:

John Pizzarelli
Punch Brothers
Lloyd
The Cab
Gretchen Wilson
Ozomatli
Branford Marsalis
Candlebox
REO Speedwagon

If you happened to miss last night's broadcast or just want to see all the videos as they're posted, you can click on the link below and watch.

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/notebook?page=bbtn/takemeout

I really liked John Pizzarelli's take, but I can't wait to hear Ozomatli and REO Speedwagon do their versions. I'll let you know what I think once I've seen them, but I'd really like to hear which ones are your favorites. Then on July 13th we'll see if we were in league with the public or if we struck out.

For now, enjoy the song and don't forget to "root, root, root for the home team". (Those would be the guys from the Fens.)