DOG COMMENTARY:
Baseball has been recognized as America’s Pastime since Bone Daddy was a young pup in West Texas in the mid-1950’s….and since that time…..there have really been only two MLB songs that captured the hearts of baseball fans all over the country….”Take Me Out To The Ballgame” and “Talking Baseball” with “Willie, Mickey and the Duke”….for they both are just as popular today as they were back then.
“Talkin’ Baseball (Willie, Mickey & The Duke)“ is a 1981 song written and performed by Terry Cashman. The song describes the history of American major league baseball from the 1950’s to the beginning of the 1980’s. The song was originally released during the 1981 Major League Baseball strike….and was inspired by a picture of the three outfielders of the title (Willie Mays, Mickey Mantle, and Duke Snider) together. (Joe DiMaggio was also in the photograph, but he was left out of the song and airbrushed from the record’s picture sleeve.) The original sheet music for the song is a part of the Cooperstown Collection, and Cashman was honored at the 2011 Hall Of Fame weekend.
Each version begins with a synthesizer version of the first ten notes of the song “Take me Out to the Ballgame”, before the singing starts. Each version ends on a fade. A modified version of the song entitled “Talkin’ Softball,” also sung by Cashman, appeared in the February 20, 1992, episode of The Simpsons (“Homer at the Bat”). It can also be found on the 1999 CD compilation Go Simpsonic With the Simpsons…..and Talkin’ Baseball closes out the It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia episode “The Gang Beats Boggs”…..but nothing compares to the original release seen herewith….as Bone Daddy captured it during the 1981 MLB strike.
This original version captures the essence of baseball….for each of these players named herewith….left indelible impact on the game….just as the song has….and we at ImaSportsphile are so happy to have this “nugget of gold” in our treasure chest of vintage memories here at our video museum.
