At 8:15 a.m. this morning, using the school public address system, Tyrone High’s 94-year-old speech team paid musical, historical, and poetical tribute to Tyrone High School’s baseball team as the Golden Eagles prepare to play ball against the Penns Valley Rams on Monday, April 2 at Tyrone’s home field.
Friday’s speech team tribute was scheduled to open with a musical performance by state chorus baritone Joshua Shaffer singing that celebrated anthem of baseball entitled “Take Me Out To The Ball Game”. In 1908, Vaudeville entertainer Jack Norworth composed this song while riding the subway train in Manhattan, New York. Later, Norworth confessed that he never even had attended a baseball game.
Following Shaffer’s musical tribute, Tyrone speech team captain Russell Beck was scheduled to render some historical remarks about Tyrone High School baseball. He reminded students that basketball, football and wrestling all appeared on the sport’s scene at Tyrone High long before baseball.
According to Daily Herald sports editor, Bob Miller, Tyrone High had a baseball team in 1923, but then there wasn’t another team on the record books until 1949, with Karl “Zeke” Laporte as the coach.
Beck was scheduled to conclude his historical remarks with Beatnik writer Gregory Corso’s tribute entitled “Dream Of A Baseball Player”, which features these lyrics: “Then came the pitches! Hundreds came! All on fire! / He swung, and swung, and swung — A Hundred Strikes / The umpire, dressed in strange attire / Thundered his judgment — You’re Out / And then he screamed in his dream / God: Throw your merciful pitch / Hear, the crack of bat / Hooray, the sharp line to left / Yes, the double, the triple / Hosanna — For The Home Run!
From Russell Beck’s historical remarks, the spotlight spanned to current Tyrone athletic director, star pitcher, and baseball coach Thomas L. Coleman. A. D. Coleman was scheduled to conclude the public address broadcast with a poetical reading about baseball by James Metcalf entitled “The Glory Of Baseball”, featuring these lyrics: The Game Of Baseball is The King / Of all the games we play / And it is one pursuit / That is distinctly USA / The people swarm into the stands / To watch their favorite teams / And munch their hot dogs when their lungs / Are not engaged in screams / The Pitcher hurls the horsehide / And The Batter gets a hit / Or else The Ball goes sailing / And some fielder smothers it / A Clever Runner steals a base / A Player takes A Walk / Or Managers and Umpires decide to have a talk / The Crowd is sad and gloomy / Or completely in suspense / But it goes wild when Someone knocks / The Ball beyond the fence.
Finally, after the musical, historical, and poetical tributes concluded on Friday morning, the speech team challenged Tyrone baseball players to knock some balls beyond the fence and encouraged Tyrone fans to cheer the players with this new slogan for 2007 — “Shout Hosanna For Baseball, and Go Wild For The Game!”
