The ASCAP Foundation, the separate charitable arm for the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers, was established in 1975 after Norworth’s estate left a bequest of the future licensing payments for baseball’s unofficial anthem and his other hits.
I had no idea. I’ll happily think of this every time I join a seventh-inning-stretch singalong of Take Me Out to the Ballgame. That Wikipedia entry needs to be updated to reflect this tidbit about the song’s royalties, which have ceased since both the original and revised versions were published before 1930 and, therefore, are now in the public domain. I am sort of surprised Norworth’s 1927 revised version didn’t make Duke Law’s list of featured musical compositions entering the public domain in 2023.
Here’s the entry for the original version of the song in the Library of Congress Catalog of Copyright Entries for 1908. It’s kind of wild to see that listed as just one of many registrations that year, with no fanfare and no suggestion that it would ultimately become the unofficial anthem of baseball and one of the three most recognizable songs in America. Amazing.
posted by matt in Saturday, June 14, 2025
