'Take Me Out to the Ballgame,' the song that's now a 7th inning tradition at every MLB game, was inspired by a billboard advertisement.

The magazine was initially “devoted to the interests of advertisers, poster printers, bill posters, advertising agents & secretaries of fairs.” While it occasionally tracked music via sheet music, record, and jukebox sales through the 1930s, it added its first true top 10 singles chart in 1940.

For a time, Minnelli's version of the song was played following defeats. After each Yankees victory, it was Frank Sinatra's version. Ultimately, the team stopped using Minnelli's version, though Sinatra's is still played after every Yankees win.

Broadway’s early decades were heavily influenced by opera and vaudeville, but songwriters in the 1920s began exploring more narrative-based songwriting and psychologically complex characters. That trend would continue in the following decades, though it would evolve in even more nuanced ways.

Judy Garland’s original 1939 version won the Academy Award for best original song, though it never appeared on the Billboard pop singles chart (which didn’t appear until 1940). Twenty different versions of the song by other artists—including Willie Nelson, Patti LaBelle, and Israel "Iz" Kamakawiwo'ole—have appeared on numerous Billboard charts.

The 1927 musical—penned by Oscar Hammerstein II, who would go on to create, with Richard Rodgers, other titanic shows like "Oklahoma!" and "Carousel"—used its songs to advance the plot and build character rather than simply entertain.

Staffers from SPIN magazine wade into the contentious waters of official anthems, making the case for their chosen track, from Chicago's "Tonight, Tonight" by the Smashing Pumpkins to the Bobby Bare rendition of "The Streets of Baltimore."

The legendary park was built in 1912 and is considered hallowed ground for baseball fans, along with iconic venues like Yankee Stadium in the Bronx and Wrigley Field in Chicago.

In 1942, the publication introduced the Harlem Hit Parade chart, listing the top 10 records sold at select record stores in the majority-Black borough of New York. In 1945, it changed the chart’s name to Most Played Juke Box Race Records, using the music industry term (“race record”) that identified recordings by Black artists, even if they played music markedly similar to the white artists on the other charts.

In addition to becoming a standard tune to ring in the new year, the song has been reworked as a Dutch soccer anthem, a Japanese standard, and the South Korean national anthem. A significant part of its widespread use is that it has no copyright limitations. It helps, too, that it's simple melody is easy for even the most amateur singers to tackle.

"National Pastime" used the statistics of real Major League Baseball players to determine a winner, creating the template for the modern fantasy sports model.

The song was No. 1 on Billboard’s Best Selling Retail Records chart, the predecessor to the Hot 100. The chart only measured record copies sold, excluding other indicators of popularity, like sheet music sales or jukebox plays, that were used on other charts.

Baseball, while commonly known as America's pastime, gets a bit of a bad rap for being long, slow, and boring. Here are fourteen fun ideas to make the sport more interesting to combat dwindling attendance.

The 1960 song, composed by husband-and-wife Brill Building occupants Gerry Goffin and Carole King, was more than a little suggestive. The main character wondered if her partner would abandon her after a night of passion, leading to some stations banning the record. But it also propelled the song to the top of the Billboard Hot 100.

"Bitter Fruit" was written by Abel Meeropol, a teacher, under the pseudonym Lewis Allen, after seeing a photograph of a lynching. Eventually, he set the words to music, and the song was then performed by his wife and other singers. In 1938, he played it for Holiday, who began performing it at the New York's Cafe Society.

The 1939 film’s songs were written by composer Harold Arlen and lyricist EY “Yip” Harburg. In an early draft of "Over the Rainbow," the movie's most famous song, Harburg scribbled "Some day I’ll wish upon a star + wake + find the darkness far behind me,” which would eventually become the iconic line, “Some day I’ll wish upon a star and wake up where the clouds are far behind me.”

At age 32, pitcher James “Pud” Galvin was feeling tired and decided to take "the Brown-Séquard elixir," which contained a testicular fluid from dogs and guinea pigs, believed to invigorate tired bodies. It might've worked: Galvin pitched a two-hit shutout the next day.

The 1985 track "The Super Bowl Shuffle" was recorded for charity, but the song (with its rudimentary raps and goofy taunts) became an unexpected hit, reaching No. 41 on the Hot 100 chart. This podcast digs into the history of the song and how it became an unexpected pop culture phenomenon.

Following the success of ‘The Wonderful Wizard of Oz,’ Baum adapted the novel for the stage. It premiered at Chicago’s Grand Opera House in 1902 and made it to Broadway’s Majestic Theatre in 1903. It then toured the country through 1909. It was also a musical adaptation of the story.

This 1904 Harper’s Weekly article from Emma Bell Miles offers an early example of country music criticism. Miles traces the music’s roots to the mountaineers who pioneered it. It’s a famous piece for music writers: Miles saw a phenomenon building in the hills long before any major record label.

The bandleader was booked to play a New Year’s Eve concert live on CBS radio program called the Robert Burns Panatela Show, named after its sponsor, a cigar brand. Lombardo, noting the cigar's name, decided “Auld Lang Syne,” penned by the poet Robert Burns, would be both a fitting tribute and, thematically, a great way to enter a new year.

While the early 1900s built the template for country music as a genre, the 1990s pushed the music into the mainstream, setting the course for country’s modern ubiquity. Artists like Garth Brooks and Shania Twain pushed against the genre’s orthodoxy, turning the music into blockbuster entertainment with a pop sheen.

While inflation affects the price of all goods and services across an economy, some hit harder for consumers than others. Taking data from the average cost of tickets all the way down to the number of hot dogs a family would buy, the average pricetag for a family of four to attend a baseball game is now just over $200–making America’s pastime cost-prohibitive for many families.

Thanks to the advent of electricity, by the middle of the 19th century, theaters in the Broadway area were illuminated by lampposts and marquees. The nickname “the Great White Way” describes how it looked at night. The term is still used today.

The 1917 song by the Original Dixieland Jass Band was the first jazz recording to be issued and put the New Orleans sound on the national stage, along with inspiring several soundalikes.

The name “Super Bowl” was coined by AFL founder Lamar Hunt, who casually suggested it in 1966—riffing on his child’s Super Ball toy—after alternatives such as “The Big One” and “AFL-NFL World Championship Game” proved clunky and forgettable. The name was officially adopted for the third championship.

Published in 2018 by baseball historian Jacob Kornhauser, this list examines the defining moments throughout more than a century of play on the field, from Pittsburgh Pirates pitcher Dock Ellis purportedly throwing a no-hitter while on acid to Jackie Robinson breaking the color barrier.

Billboard introduced its Modern Rock Tracks chart in 1988, looking to capture the rising popularity of acts like the Cure, REM, and U2. Music writer and Billboard obsessive Chris Molanphy traces the chart from his earliest days through grunge, alternative, and corporate eras, demonstrating just how much taste changes over time.