Take Me Out to the Ball Game

"How many times have I told you to pick on somebody your size?"

"There ain't nobody my size."

Denny Ryan (Sinatra) and Eddie O'Brien (Kelly) are baseball players for the Wolves and vaudeville performers.  As they prepare for the upcoming season, the they learn that team has a new owner: K.C. Higgins (Williams).  The team is shocked to learn that K.C. is a woman, and even more surprised when she knows what she's talking about.  She also asks the coaches, Michael Gilhuly (Lane) and Slappy Burke (Dugan), to enforce the strict curfew rules, which cramps O'Brien's social life.

O'Brien and K.C. butt heads on every occasions.  Ryan is smitten with K.C. and believes she is the one.  Ryan is pursued by an obsessive fan, Shirley Delwyn (Garrett).  The season begins with a victory, thanks to the fielding dream team of O'Brien, Ryan, and Nat Goldberg (Munshin).  But their victories attract the wrong kind of attention.  Can the team stick together to win it all?


This is the second of three film collaboration between Gene Kelly and Frank Sinatra: Anchors Aweigh in 1945 and On the Town in 1949.  Several cast members from this film also appeared in On the Town: Sinatra, Kelly, Betty Garrett, and Jules Munshin.  This film capitalized on the success of Kelly and Sinatra.

Sinatra received top billing in the film.  He also gets the most songs.  He works well with Kelly, who does most of the dancing.  Sinatra and Garrett have great chemistry and are entertaining, which is probably why they were paired together again in On the Town.  Sinatra, Garrett, and Kelly each get a character defining solo number.  Despite getting second billing, Esther Williams does not have a solo.  She sings a shortened reprise of the title number while swimming, but it isn't a big number like her costars.  She did not enjoy making the film, which she specifically recounts in her autobiography.

The film is entertaining with some good songs.  Ultimately it was upstaged by On the Town a few months later.

Take Me Out to the Ball Game (1949) 93 minutes
Director: Busby Berkeley
Starring: Frank Sinatra as Denny Ryan
Esther Williams as K.C. Higgins
Gene Kelly as Eddie O'Brien
Betty Garrett as Shirley Delwyn
Jules Munshin as Nat Goldberg
Edward Arnold as Joe Lorgan
Richard Lane as Michael Gilhuly
Tom Dugan as Slappy Burke