Wrigley Field Take Me Out To The Ballgame question

Z-Man and I trekked to Wrigley Field the other night to see the Brewers play the Cubs. My hatred of the Cubs is well-known, but no one in their right mind could hate Wrigley.

I can hate the fact that Harry Caray's statue on the corner of Waveland and Sheffield looks like a demon being birthed from the depths of hell (right down to the Nightmare On Elm Street/Evil Dead faces of the souls he's appropriated and condemned to eternal damnation), that Geovany Soto hit two home runs for the Cubs, and that the Go, Cubs, Go! song is scads more horrid in person than it is on TV, but I digress. We enjoyed the experience a lot.

But we were wondering. As Kurt Busch prepared to sing the 7th Inning Stretch (if you're driving, please avoid bridge abutments, should you still chose to live upon knowing Kurt Busch sang at a Cubs game), did the Empire Carpet guy, or, the singers who did the Lincoln Carpet jingle, ever get to sing Take Me Out To The Ballgame?

Empire Carpet guy (who died recently, didn't he?) and the Lincoln jingle are avatars of the Cubs' watching experience on WGN. They both should have got their props. How bad ass would it be to be at Wrigley when they sang? It's undeniable that both would get a massive ovation and deservedly so.

If the Cubs whore out the song to dickheads like Kurt Busch or whatever celebrity flavor of the month happened to be in Chicago at the time, surely they should have thrown a bone to Empire Carpet guy and the Lincoln jingle singers, icons of Cubs- and Chicago-dom.

 

So glad Cubdom has claimed Harry for their own.

Still trying to forget his years on the South Side, and the lush embarassed himself in St. Louis, for years.

 

Opening day 1980, sitting in Knollwood Tavern in Kalamazoo, watching the Sox stumble to a 4-0 first inning deficit against the Orioles... Caray turns to Jimmy Piersall and says "Everything we thought would go wrong with the Sox this season has happened in the very first inning of the very first game..."
Good times...

 

First of all, Fuck Wisconsin...

But to answer your question, I don't recall if the Empire Guy or Lincoln Jingle Singers ever got to do TMOTTBG. I do know that Ozzy Osbourne did it once and I was there to hear it. I am quite certain you could dig up the Empire Guy and he'd do a better job today than Ozzy did then.

I freaking hate that they're still doing this and hoped they'd stop once the Trib sold the team.

That said, one thing they've started doing with it that I do think is cool is having the guys on the ground crew sing it from the field at the last home game of the season.

Other than that, Just. Fucking. Stop.

 

I did some research ... they had an Empire Carpet Day at Wrigley about five years ago, but it did not indicate whether Empire Carpet guy got to sing Take Me Out To The Ballgame.

 

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IIRC, they started brining in "celebrity singers" after Harry died to keep the tradition alive. That same summer, Jack Brickhouse also died, and I was hoping they'd honor him by not singing TMOTTB, since he didn't either.

 

Speaking of research:

Ball Game.