05/05/2026
A NATIONAL PASTIME, A PERSONAL TRIBUTE
by Curtis Tucker, General & Artistic Director of First Coast Opera
Music and baseball might seem like strange bedfellows, but this combination is particularly meaningful for me. My Dad died in 2002. He was my first music teacher and my first baseball coach. These two activities not only dominated my youth, but have remained present throughout my life. I still do them both, one as vocation and one as avocation, with my Dad's memory ever present.
So these songs, which I chose from the sheet music collection at the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York, are nostalgic in many of the most wonderful ways. Everyone knows "Take Me Out to the Ball Game," which premiered in 1908. Its immediate popularity inspired other composers of the day to write songs about baseball. But you don't need to know much about baseball to appreciate these songs.
Sure, they refer to many baseball-related things, but they are also storytelling vignettes about love and relationships, often through humor, and always with melodic and catchy tunes. I hope you will join us and enjoy this program. I will be there, and so will, at least in my heart and mind, my Dad.
⚾ Take Me Out to the Ball Game - Friday, May 8th @ 12pm at The Waterworks - Romanza St. Augustine
