Back in the day attending a Tigers game guaranteed you a 30,000+ singalong of ‘Thank God I’m a Country Boy’.
Yep, sounds like a typical growing-up-in-Detroit experience.
mmm
Several such patriotic songs are in the 1978 Lutheran Book of Worship. As I don’t go to church very often these days, I don’t know what’s in the new 2006 Evangelical Lutheran Worship. So there’s another data point.
I don’t understand this hatred to fouling off pitches. A hitter working a nine or ten pitch at bat has done a lot (all situation dependent, of course) to help his team by working up the pitcher’s pitch count. The starter’s not going to last very long if you can make him throw twenty or thirty pitches an inning.
That obvious tactical importance notwithstanding, I’ll betcha it’s still trying on most fans’ patience.
Ken Rosenthal needs to find another (less douchey) way to recognize charities with the fucking bow-tie, and accordingly get fined $50,000 every time he transgresses with that.
(Yeah yeah - nothing to do with the 7th inning, but since others are coming up with modifications…)
And it builds the drama of the game-within-the-game, the batter-versus-pitcher matchup! I love long PAs.
“The Sound of Silence,” maybe? 
This occurred at an Orioles game I attended earlier this year. As most of my understanding of Baltimore is from The Wire, I was unclear on the connection.
“Thank God I’m a Country Boy” is an Orioles tradition going way back, long before the current ballpark, since it was introduced as a current pop hit.
My exhaustive research indicates that the Orioles have been playing ‘Country Boy’ since 1983, 8 years after it was released. Looks like the Tigers started using it a year later.
mmm
Yup, there is an incredibly subtle game going on that a lot of people are missing.
I can’t believe I made it to… my current age… not knowing that the “seventh-inning stretch” refers to physical stretching. I’ve always assumed it meant they were entering the final stretch of the game.
Fact for the day learned.
No. The Orioles started using the song late in the 1975 season. My previous cite mentioned this, perhaps a bit obliquely, but here’s another.
Major League Baseball must permanently retire ‘God Bless America,’ a song that offends everyone
Ok which one of you is Gersh Kuntzman? I would accuse our resident NY Daily News subscriber but he ain’t even in this thread.
Yep, you’re right. The Orioles have been playing it much longer.
You win.
Sorta 
mmm
People have been saying that at least since April 2002.
It should have ended Sept 11 2002. But now, no team wants to be the first to be the first to eliminate it and deal with the outrage from some right wing group or sports talk radio announcer.
Well, I don’t think anybody but the Yankees plays it at every game any more, do they? The Orioles do it only on Sundays.
It’s like the weather. Everyone talks about it, but no one does anything about it.
At Blue Jays games you sing both “Take Me Out To The Ballgame” and “OK Blue Jays.” So maybe there are such songs but they’re just regional.
I don’t mind it, it’s kinda fun and in Toronto we don’t do the “God Bless America” thing. Singing the anthems before the game is still a thing and I’d be happy to see that go.
As far as I know, “Sweet Caroline” is only a Red Sox thing, and is played in the eighth inning, not the seventh.