Plot
In the early 1900s, world champion baseball team, the Wolves, is preparing for spring training but is missing star players Dennis Ryan and Eddie O’Brien, who are late returning from their vaudeville performances. While Eddie prefers performing, Dennis is eager to return to baseball. When they finally arrive in Sarasota, they discover the team’s owner has died and left it to a distant relative, KC Higgins, who is actually a woman named Katherine. She impresses the team with her baseball knowledge and skills, except for Eddie, who acts condescending toward her.
Katherine imposes a strict curfew on the team, with fines for breaking it. Eddie, who wants to go out for the evening, notices Katherine swimming, and he and fellow player Nat Goldberg encourage shy Dennis to talk to her, hoping to arrange a triple date to avoid curfew. Dennis sings to her, but Katherine isn't interested and politely ends the conversation. Undeterred, Eddie climbs to her balcony to impress her, but is sent away and receives a fine. During the opening game, Eddie, Dennis, and Nat entertain the crowd with a skit, and one fan, Shirley, becomes infatuated with Dennis. Tensions rise when Katherine scolds Eddie for heckling the umpire, only to lose her own temper later. The Wolves win, and Shirley pursues Dennis throughout the stadium, determined to win his affection.
During a mid-season break at a clambake, Katherine and Eddie share a kiss, but Katherine feels humiliated when she learns it was part of a bet. Confused about her feelings, she kisses Dennis in front of Eddie, but neither feels a spark, leading Dennis to realize his feelings for Shirley. Meanwhile, mobster Joe Morgan, who bet a large sum against the team, sees Eddie perform and offers him a nightclub role that conflicts with his baseball schedule. Eddie decides to secretly rehearse at night, but starts to struggle in games due to exhaustion. Mike Gilhuly, the Wolves' manager, misinterprets Eddie’s decline as love troubles, suggesting Katherine spend time with him.
Eddie and Katherine privately discuss their feelings for each other when Joe interrupts and tells Katherine about Eddie's nighttime rehearsals, leading her to kick him off the team. The Wolves' chances of winning the pennant plummet without Eddie. In a bid to save the team, Eddie encourages kids to chant for him at the championship game, leading to a stadium-wide rally. The team joyously welcomes him back, and Katherine agrees to let him join the game. However, Shirley overhears Joe order his henchmen to make sure Eddie doesn't play and tells Dennis, who chooses to keep Eddie safe by knocking him out with a real baseball during their skit.
Eddie is taken to the locker room, where Joe's men, posing as doctors, knock him out every time he wakes up. Shirley recognizes the men and, with Katherine's help, gets the Wolves to throw them out. When Eddie comes to, he learns that Dennis knocked him out on purpose and furiously hits a home run before chasing Dennis around the bases, which wins the pennant for the Wolves. The police arrest Joe and his gang as the crowd lifts Eddie and Dennis into the air in celebration.
The story may have been influenced by the real-life story of actor/ballplayer Mike Donlin, who was a baseball player while also being a vaudeville performer and later a film actor in early Hollywood.
Reception
Take Me Out to the Ball Game was a box-office success, earning $2,987,000 in the U.S. and Canada and $978,000 overseas, resulting in a profit of $675,000. [1] [10]
On March 13, 1949, Bob Thomas of the Associated Press wrote, "Take Me Out to the Ball Game is a sure cure for anybody's blues. Seldom has there been a film loaded with such fine entertainment. Bright young people like Frank Sinatra, Gene Kelly, Esther Williams, Betty Garrett and Jules Munshin make even the contrived plot likable." [11]
The New York Times' Bosley Crowther gave the film a mixed review, concluding, "For all its high spots, however, the show lacks consistent style and pace, and the stars are forced to clown and grimace much more than becomes their speed. Actually, the plotted humor is conspicuously bush-league stuff. Don't be surprised if you see people getting up for a seventh-inning stretch." [12]
On Rotten Tomatoes the film holds a 95% rating based on 19 contemporary and modern reviews, with an average rating of 8 out of 10. [13]
