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Speaker 1: This Day in History Class is a production of iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 1: Hello and Welcome to This Day in History Class, a

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Speaker 1: show that runs the basis of history every day of

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Speaker 1: the week. I'm Gabe Lucier, and in this episode, we're

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Speaker 1: looking at a nostalgic milestone in baseball history, the day

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Speaker 1: when the music of a pipe organ first drifted over

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Speaker 1: a ballpark. The day was April twenty sixth, nineteen forty one.

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Speaker 1: The Chicago Cubs became the first major league team to

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Speaker 1: have live organ music performed at a ballgame. Cubs owner

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Speaker 1: Philip K. Wrigley installed a pipe organ behind the grandstand

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Speaker 1: of wriggly Field to provide fans with a little pregame

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Speaker 1: entertainment as they took their seats. The inaugural concert took

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Speaker 1: place before an afternoon game between the Cubs and the

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Speaker 1: Saint Louis Cardinals, and the tunes were supplied by local

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Speaker 1: organist Ray Nelson. There's no record of which songs he played,

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Speaker 1: but there's a good chance this was one of them.

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Speaker 1: According to the Chicago Tribune, the more than eighteen thousand

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Speaker 1: fans in attendance that day were delighted by Nelson's performance,

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Speaker 1: even though the music wasn't allowed to continue during the

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Speaker 1: actual game. Apparently no one had bothered to clear the

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Speaker 1: rights for the songs Nelson played, and because the game

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Speaker 1: was set to be broadcast on the radio, they had

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Speaker 1: to stop the music before the first pitch was thrown.

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Speaker 1: The same thing happened at a game the following day,

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Speaker 1: but the team's manager assured fans that by the time

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Speaker 1: the Cubs returned home from a series of away games,

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Speaker 1: they would have a deal worked out with the BMI

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Speaker 1: Music publishing company. With that in mind, the Tribune urged

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Speaker 1: readers to send the organist's suggestions for quote, any little

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Speaker 1: number you'd like to have rippled off some afternoon. Unfortunately,

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Speaker 1: working out the details proved trickier than expected, and by

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Speaker 1: mid May, both the organ and the organists had disappeared

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Speaker 1: from Wrigley Field. The Cub's home turf would remain organ

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Speaker 1: music free until nineteen sixty seven, but in the meantime,

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Speaker 1: other teams took notice of the promising experiment in Brooklyn,

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Speaker 1: New York. For example, Dodger's president Larry McPhail loved the

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Speaker 1: idea of bringing live music to baseball. After all, organ

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Speaker 1: music had already found a home at some of New

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Speaker 1: York's other sporting events. Organist Gladys Gooding routinely played in

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Speaker 1: Madison Square Garden during both Rangers and Knicks games, and

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Speaker 1: if she was good enough for hockey and basketball, then

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Speaker 1: why not baseball as well. McPhail invited Gooding to play

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Speaker 1: the organ for the Dodgers at Ebbitts Field, making her

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Speaker 1: the first full time organist for an MLB team. Gooding

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Speaker 1: continued in her role as the ebbitts Field organ queen

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Speaker 1: from nineteen forty two to nineteen fifty seven, when the

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Speaker 1: Dodgers made their infamous move to Los Angeles. During that time,

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Speaker 1: other pipe organs began popping up at baseball fields all

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Speaker 1: over the country, but it wasn't until the nineteen sixties

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Speaker 1: and early seventies that the instrument truly became a fixture

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Speaker 1: of the ballpark. The Chicago White Sox installed their first

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Speaker 1: organ in nineteen sixty, and because they still use it today,

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Speaker 1: they can now claim the type of longest uninterrupted organ

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Speaker 1: tradition in all of professional baseball. Two years later, the

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Speaker 1: Dodgers reintroduced the instrument at their new stadium in LA

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Speaker 1: and in nineteen sixty seven, the Chicago Cubs, the team

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Speaker 1: that started at all, finally welcomed the organ back to

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Speaker 1: Wrigley Field. They went through a string of organists over

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Speaker 1: the next two decades, but in nineteen eighty seven, the

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Speaker 1: Cubs met their match with Gary Pressey. In his astounding

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Speaker 1: thirty three year run from nineteen eighty seven to twenty nineteen,

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Speaker 1: Pressey played the organ at every single game two thousand,

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Speaker 1: six hundred and seventy nine in total. Few would have

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Speaker 1: guessed that a throwback instrument like the organ, one that

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Speaker 1: was previously reserved for cathedrals, vaudeville acts, and silent movie screenings,

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Speaker 1: would later come to define the sound of America's favorite pastime.

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Speaker 1: And no one would have predicted that the organ's cent

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Speaker 1: what happen in the middle of the rock and roll era,

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Speaker 1: But against the odds, that's exactly what happened. A lot

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Speaker 1: of the credit for the longevity of ballpark organ music

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Speaker 1: belongs to Nancy Faust, the longtime organist for the Chicago

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Speaker 1: White Sox. When she first took the job at Kamiski

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Speaker 1: Park in nineteen seventy, she pretty much stuck to the

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Speaker 1: baseball organ playbook. She played the Star Spangled banner at

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Speaker 1: the start of every game, and take me out to

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Speaker 1: the ballgame during the seventh inning stretch. She also carried

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Speaker 1: on the tradition of musically introducing the players at bat

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Speaker 1: by playing the anthem of their home state. After a while, though,

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Speaker 1: Nancy realized the state songs were feeling a bit dated

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Speaker 1: and didn't garner much reaction from crowds used to rock

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Speaker 1: and roll, So from then on she started playing songs

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Speaker 1: that fans were more familiar with, always careful to somehow

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Speaker 1: tie each song to a player's name, number, or disposition.

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Speaker 1: That would have been innovative enough, I mean, she basically

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Speaker 1: invented walk up music as we know it. But Nancy

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Speaker 1: didn't stop there. Fueled by the crowd's positive response, she

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Speaker 1: began using the organ to react to the game itself.

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Speaker 1: When someone stole a base, she'd play smooth Criminal, and

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Speaker 1: if someone streaked naked across the field, as often happened

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Speaker 1: in those days, she'd launch into an organ rendition of

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Speaker 1: is that all there is? But Nancy's most famous addition

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Speaker 1: to the baseball songbook has to be the one she

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Speaker 1: played during strikeouts nineteen sixty nine's Nana Hey, Hey, Kiss

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Speaker 1: Him Goodbye by Steam, Take a listen. The playful commentary

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Speaker 1: that Nancy provided on the organ heightened the experience of

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Speaker 1: attending a baseball game, giving the crowd something to laugh, sing,

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Speaker 1: or chant along with far more than mere background music.

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Speaker 1: Her performances essentially scored the action of the game as

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Speaker 1: if it were a film, just as past organists had

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Speaker 1: done for silent movies, except in her case, she mostly

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Speaker 1: decided what to play on the fly, which made the

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Speaker 1: whole experience feel lively, spontaneous, and unique. Nancy's knack for

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Speaker 1: knowing what to play and when to play it quickly

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Speaker 1: made her a legend among baseball fans. Her talents were

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Speaker 1: so renowned that other teams started sending their organists to

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Speaker 1: Komiski Park just to watch her in action. Pretty soon,

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Speaker 1: her soundtrack approach to organ playing became the standard of

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Speaker 1: the trade, characterized by comedic punctuation and topical song choices.

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Speaker 1: In the decades since Nancy faust reinvented the game, ballpark

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Speaker 1: organ music has had its ups and down. In the

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Speaker 1: nineteen eighties and nineties, some teams moved to new stadiums

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Speaker 1: and didn't bring their pipe organs along. Others had their

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Speaker 1: organists retire and then just didn't hire new ones. Still,

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Speaker 1: even in those cases, organ music didn't fade from their

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Speaker 1: stadiums completely. Pre Recorded tracks were still played over the

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Speaker 1: loudspeakers to add a little nostalgia to the proceedings. Fans

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Speaker 1: expectation of hearing organ music at a ballgame eventually led

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Speaker 1: to a resurgence of the practice. In the twenty tens,

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Speaker 1: teams started hiring back their organists, and as of twenty

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Speaker 1: twenty four, more than half of the thirty teams in

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Speaker 1: the MLB now employ one, even if only part time.

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Speaker 1: In many cases, a ballpark organist is now paired with

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Speaker 1: a DJ who spins more contemporary tracks in between the classics.

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Speaker 1: That compromise has helped secure the organ's future in American baseball,

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Speaker 1: and it's a good thing too, because rooting for the

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Speaker 1: home team just wouldn't be the same without it. I'm

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Speaker 1: Gay Blues Yay, and hopefully you now know a little

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Speaker 1: more about history today than you did yesterday. If you'd

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Speaker 1: like to keep up with the show, you can follow

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Speaker 1: us on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram at TDI HC Show,

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Speaker 1: and if you have any comments or suggestions, feel free

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Speaker 1: to send them my way by writing to this day

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Speaker 1: at iHeartMedia dot com. Thanks to kazb Bias for producing

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Speaker 1: the show, and thanks to you for listening. I'll see

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Speaker 1: you back here again tomorrow for another day in history

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Speaker 1: class