Baseball Organists Play Ball

With Major League Baseball's opening day coming up on April 6, I figured a little history on the baseball stadium organ would be in order.

The organ made its leap from silent-movie theaters to sporting arenas in 1929, during a Chicago Blackhawks hockey game. The idea for installing an organ to entertain and pep-up the crowd came from a guy named Paddy Harmon, a dance-hall promoter who helped finance the construction of Chicago Stadium, home of the Blackhawks. Not to be outdone, other pro hockey teams began installing organs throughout the 1930s.

The first ballpark organ appeared at Wrigley Field (above), home of the Chicago Cubs, on Saturday, April 26, 1941. A year later, the first full-time organist was hired at New York's Ebbet's Field, home of the Brooklyn Dodgers. Her name was Gladys Gooding, who remained the team organist until 1957. Here's Gooding on the organ...



Here's Bob Mitchell, a silent-movie organist who took over at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles from 1962 to 1966...



John Kiley was organist at Boston's Fenway Park from 1953 to 1984. Here's an album he recorded in 1966...



But for me, spending afternoons at New York's Yankee Stadium in the late 1960s and 1970s, Eddie Layton had it all. A soap opera organist and Hammond virtuoso, Eddie treated the instrument like a big band. Whenever I hear Eddie playing today on recordings, I think of spring ballpark weather I didn't dress warmly enough for, the smell of hot dogs and the taste of Cracker Jack. Here's Eddie playing You Gotta Have Heart...



Here's a segment on Eddie from 1996...



Here's the New York Mets' Jane Jarvis, who had a big, wide sound and began with the team in 1964 and left in 1979 to focus on her first love, jazz...



Here's Jarvis on TV's To Tell the Truth in 1966. Move the bar to 7:04...



Here's Helen Dell at Dodger Stadium. She retired in 1988...



Here's Nancy Bea Hefley at Dodger Stadium (after taking over for Helen Dell in 1989), playing Sukiyaki...



Here's the Chicago White Sox Nancy Faust, who retired in 2010 after 41 seasons...



For more information on the history of the organ at sports arenas and stadiums, read Matthew Mihalka's From Town Hall to “Play Ball!”: The Origins of the Baseball Organ. Go here.