Two Musical Odes to the Brooklyn Dodgers

Brooklyn now has a professional basketball team, and even had a hockey team for a short while, but way back when, its sports identity was focused on a baseball team - the legendary Dodgers.

Oh, the Dodgers still exist - on a distant promontory called Chavez Ravine in Los Angeles, as far away from Brooklyn as it is possible to be in the continental United States. That's the way it has been since 1957.

Even though I was a passionate Cleveland Indians fan, the eight-year-old me hated to see the Dodgers leave Ebbets Field, and hated just as much the thought of the New York Giants vacating the peculiar environs of the Polo Grounds for a new home on San Francisco Bay.

Brooklyn has always been a favorite subject for musicians. In years past, there were many recorded odes to the beloved borough. A quick scan turns up a "Brooklyn Boogie," "Brooklyn Polka," "Brooklyn Stomp," "Brooklyn Bounce," "Brooklyn Cake-Walk," "Brooklyn Bridge," "Cowboy from Brooklyn," "Born and Bred in Brooklyn," "Give Me the Moon Over Brooklyn," and "I'm Gonna Hang My Hat on a Tree in Brooklyn," plus the baseball odes that are the subjects of today's post - Robert Merrill in the "Brooklyn Baseball Cantata," and three 1948 Dodgers players doing "The Brooklyn Dodgers Jump."

The Brooklyn Baseball Cantata

"The Brooklyn Baseball Cantata" is a highly amusing piece that is brilliantly done here by baritone Robert Merrill (1917-2004), a native of the borough, along with Russ Case's orchestra and singers.

The music is by George Kleinsinger, best known for his 1946 hit, "Tubby the Tuba." He (Kleinsinger, not Tubby) worked with writer Michael Stratton on this 1937 piece that once was part of a failed Broadway review, then was revived in 1948 for the talents of Merrill, who was equally at home in pop music and at the Metropolitan Opera.

Merrill has been heard around these parts in the 1952 soundtrack to Aaron Slick from Punkin Creek, an undignified endeavor that caused Met supremo Rudolf Bing to ban him from the premises for a time.

Russ Case and Robert Merrill

Bing was not around for the "Brooklyn Baseball Cantata," so it did not get Merrill in trouble. There's no reason why it should have - it's a lively work of only 12 minutes duration that ends happily (unlike "Casey at the Bat"), with the Dodgers besting their hated rivals the New York Yankees. (This was a fantasy; when the record came out in 1948, the Dodgers had most recently lost to the Yankees in the 1947 World Series.)

Ironically, Merrill later would become closely associated with the despised Bronx Bombers. For many years they had him sing the National Anthem on Opening Day and other occasions. His recorded rendition can still be heard at Yankee Stadium from time to time.

Robert Merrill in the land of the free and the home of the Yankees

The Brooklyn Dodgers Jump

It's unknown - at least to me - which baseball player was the first to enter the recording studio and demonstrate his lack of vocal prowess. I suspect that it's been going on so long that Thomas Edison may have been at the controls.

In general, major leaguers are team-oriented and tend to make such vocal endeavors group efforts; the thinking perhaps may be that several tone-deaf singers can somehow equal one who can sing.

"The Brooklyn Dodgers Jump" is a good example of the genre. It dates from 1947 and features rightfielder Carl Furillo and pitchers Ralph Branca and Erv Palica, who display more enthusiasm than skill on this unfamiliar playing field.

By genre, the "Brooklyn Dodgers Jump" is a jump blues, although it unexpectedly utilizes an accordion rather than saxophone as lead instrument. The whole thing goes on and on, across two sides of the 78, rambling through Dodgers history, the current team, the owners, and anything else the authors could think of.

Honestly, I've heard a lot worse. Heck, I've posted worse (and better). If you check this post, you can hear Dizzy Dean sing "Wabash Cannonball" after a southern fashion and Don Drysdale croon a Sinatra tune, quite well actually. Also there's a promo record for Carling's Black Label Beer backed with "Take Me Out to the Ballgame."

Then there is this item, in which trumpeter Henry "Hot Lips" Levine plays his composition "Indian Uprising." He dedicated this number to the old Cleveland Indians, who this year have been renamed the Guardians. (They are apparently guarding the Indians' legacy of not having won a World Series since 1948.) Oh well, at least the team is still around, under one name or another!

Please enjoy these artifacts that I disinterred from the Internet Archive and refurbished for my amusement and perhaps yours.