# Take Me Out to the Ball Game (1949 film)
*Take Me Out to the Ball Game* is a 1949 American Technicolor musical comedy from [Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer](https://www.edgepedia.org/metro-goldwyn-mayer), directed by [Busby Berkeley](https://www.edgepedia.org/busby-berkeley) and starring [Gene Kelly](https://www.edgepedia.org/gene-kelly) and Frank Sinatra as star players on the Wolves baseball team, and Esther Williams as K.C. Higgins, the team's new owner, whose players moonlight as vaudeville entertainers.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/26136-TAKE-ME-OUT-TO-THE-BALL-GAME) • [2](https://www.metacritic.com/movie/take-me-out-to-the-ball-game/) It was the second of three films pairing Kelly and Sinatra, followed within months by the more successful *On the Town*.[3](https://moviesanywhere.com/movie/take-me-out-to-the-ball-game)
| Key fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Release | New York opening March 9, 1949; Los Angeles opening April 13, 1949; general release April 1949[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/26136-TAKE-ME-OUT-TO-THE-BALL-GAME) |
| Director / producer | Busby Berkeley; produced by Arthur Freed for MGM[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/26136-TAKE-ME-OUT-TO-THE-BALL-GAME) |
| Running time / format | 93 minutes, Technicolor, Western Electric Sound System[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/26136-TAKE-ME-OUT-TO-THE-BALL-GAME) |
| Principal cast | Gene Kelly (Eddie O'Brien), Frank Sinatra (Dennis Ryan), Esther Williams (K.C. Higgins), Betty Garrett (Shirley Delwyn), Edward Arnold (Joe Lorgan), Jules Munshin (Nat Goldberg)[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/26136-TAKE-ME-OUT-TO-THE-BALL-GAME) |
| Budget | Nearly $2,000,000, including $38,000 for a two-and-a-half-minute bleacher chase scene[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/26136-TAKE-ME-OUT-TO-THE-BALL-GAME) |
| Critical scores | Metascore 66 from 7 critics; 95% Tomatometer (19 reviews) and 70% Popcornmeter on Rotten Tomatoes[2](https://www.metacritic.com/movie/take-me-out-to-the-ball-game/) • [4](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/take_me_out_to_the_ball_game) |
| Award nominations | Three: Photoplay Gold Medal (1949), WGA Award for Best Written American Musical (1950), Bambi for Esther Williams (1952)[5](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0041944/awards/) |
## Spoilers
### Plot
Set in 1906, the film follows Eddie O'Brien and Dennis Ryan, star players for the Wolves baseball team, who spend the off-season working as a vaudeville song-and-dance act, to the annoyance of dedicated teammate Nat Goldberg.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/26136-TAKE-ME-OUT-TO-THE-BALL-GAME) • [6](https://www.acmi.net.au/works/88493--take-me-out-to-the-ball-game/) When the team's owner dies, he leaves the Wolves to a distant relative, K.C. Higgins, who turns out to be a woman with an exceptional knowledge of baseball; both Eddie and Dennis fall for her, and she eventually chooses Eddie.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/26136-TAKE-ME-OUT-TO-THE-BALL-GAME) • [6](https://www.acmi.net.au/works/88493--take-me-out-to-the-ball-game/) The vaudeville habit threatens the team's pennant chances when the gambler Joe Lorgan, who has bet heavily on the Wolves to lose a big game, offers Eddie the lead role in a new show to lure him off the diamond.[4](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/take_me_out_to_the_ball_game) Dennis, meanwhile, is paired with the stage performer Shirley Delwyn.[6](https://www.acmi.net.au/works/88493--take-me-out-to-the-ball-game/)
## Production
The picture was shot between July 28 and late September 1948, with George Folsey as cinematographer, [Cedric Gibbons](https://www.edgepedia.org/cedric-gibbons) and Daniel B. Cathcart as art directors, and Helen Rose designing the women's costumes.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/26136-TAKE-ME-OUT-TO-THE-BALL-GAME) Harry Tugend and George Wells wrote the screenplay from a story by Kelly and [Stanley Donen](https://www.edgepedia.org/stanley-donen), who also staged the musical numbers.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/26136-TAKE-ME-OUT-TO-THE-BALL-GAME) According to a December 1948 *Parade* article, $38,000 of the nearly $2,000,000 budget went to the two-and-a-half-minute scene in which [Betty Garrett](https://www.edgepedia.org/betty-garrett) chases Frank Sinatra through the bleachers of a baseball stadium.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/26136-TAKE-ME-OUT-TO-THE-BALL-GAME) Richard Lane replaced James Gleason, who withdrew from the cast because of illness.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/26136-TAKE-ME-OUT-TO-THE-BALL-GAME)
**Division of labor.** A Time Out review reprinted by Film Fest Gent observes that the film plays more like a Donen/Kelly musical than a Busby Berkeley one, which it attributes to the working arrangement: Kelly and Donen staged and filmed the numbers, while Berkeley left after completing the dialogue scenes.[7](https://www.filmfestival.be/en/film/take-me-out-to-the-ball-game) The same review calls the vaudeville-baseball routine "O'Brien to Ryan to Goldberg" a run-in for *On the Town*, which reunited Kelly, Sinatra, Munshin, and Garrett nine months later.[7](https://www.filmfestival.be/en/film/take-me-out-to-the-ball-game) • [3](https://moviesanywhere.com/movie/take-me-out-to-the-ball-game)
## Songs
The score combines the 1908 title song by Jack Norworth and Albert von Tilzer with new numbers by Roger Edens, Betty Comden, and Adolph Green, including "Yes, Indeedy," "O'Brien to Ryan to Goldberg," "The Right Girl for Me," "It's Fate, Baby, It's Fate," and "Strictly U.S.A.," along with "The Hat My Father Wore Upon St. Patrick's Day" by Jean Schwartz and William Jerome.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/26136-TAKE-ME-OUT-TO-THE-BALL-GAME) Adolph Deutsch was musical director and Conrad Salinger worked on the music.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/26136-TAKE-ME-OUT-TO-THE-BALL-GAME) A cut number, "Boys and Girls Like You and Me," featured Sinatra singing to Betty Garrett; [Rodgers and Hammerstein](https://www.edgepedia.org/rodgers-and-hammerstein) had originally written it for *Oklahoma!*.[8](https://www.tcm.com/watchtcm/titles/1396)
## Reception and legacy
Contemporary and later critics treated the film as a star vehicle rather than a baseball story. Bosley Crowther's review in *The New York Times* (March 10, 1949) wrote that the studio had made "a rowdy-dow musical show" in which the baseball is "strictly and clearly inferior to the dancing and singing done in it," and concluded that the plotted humor was "conspicuously bush-league stuff."[9](https://torontofilmsociety.com/film-notes/take-me-out-to-the-ball-game-1949/) Variety agreed that "there is no pretense that Ball Game is anything more than a romp for Kelly's virtuosity."[4](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/take_me_out_to_the_ball_game) On the aggregate scores, the film holds a Metascore of 66 ("generally favorable," with 4 positive and 3 mixed reviews and none negative) and a 95% Tomatometer.[10](https://www.metacritic.com/movie/take-me-out-to-the-ball-game/critic-reviews/) • [4](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/take_me_out_to_the_ball_game) Reviewers have generally ranked it below *On the Town* and *[Anchors Aweigh](https://www.edgepedia.org/anchors-aweigh-film)* among the Kelly-Sinatra vehicles.[11](https://www.christian-sauve.com/2020/03/take-me-out-to-the-ball-game-1949/)
The film also fed back into the life of its title song. The Library of Congress's National Recording Registry essay notes that the 1908 song was "gradually re-integrated into the baseball experience, in part due to the 1949 hit movie of the same title," and that in 1949 the song's copyright subtitle was changed from "The Sensational Base Ball Song" to "The Official Baseball Song."[12](https://www.loc.gov/static/programs/national-recording-preservation-board/documents/TakeMeOutToTheBallGame.pdf)
The film reflects the racial boundaries of its setting and era: a scholarly study of the postwar baseball film notes that no people of color appear in the cast, at a time when organized baseball was still segregated; [Jackie Robinson](https://www.edgepedia.org/jackie-robinson) had broken the major-league color barrier only in 1947.[13](https://ndl.ethernet.edu.et/bitstream/123456789/77438/1/245.pdf)
## References
1. [Take Me Out to the Ball Game (1949), AFI Catalog of Feature Films](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/26136-TAKE-ME-OUT-TO-THE-BALL-GAME)
2. [Take Me Out to the Ball Game Reviews, Metacritic](https://www.metacritic.com/movie/take-me-out-to-the-ball-game/)
3. [Take Me Out to the Ball Game, Movies Anywhere](https://moviesanywhere.com/movie/take-me-out-to-the-ball-game)
4. [Take Me Out to the Ball Game, Rotten Tomatoes](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/take_me_out_to_the_ball_game)
5. [Take Me Out to the Ball Game (1949) Awards, IMDb](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0041944/awards/)
6. [Take me out to the ball game, ACMI collection](https://www.acmi.net.au/works/88493--take-me-out-to-the-ball-game/)
7. [Take Me Out to the Ball Game, Film Fest Gent (Time Out review, 1990)](https://www.filmfestival.be/en/film/take-me-out-to-the-ball-game)
8. [Watch Take Me Out to the Ball Game, Turner Classic Movies](https://www.tcm.com/watchtcm/titles/1396)
9. [Take Me Out to the Ball Game (1949), Toronto Film Society film notes](https://torontofilmsociety.com/film-notes/take-me-out-to-the-ball-game-1949/)
10. [Take Me Out to the Ball Game critic reviews - Metacritic](https://www.metacritic.com/movie/take-me-out-to-the-ball-game/critic-reviews/)
11. [Take Me Out to the Ball Game (1949), Christian Sauvé](https://www.christian-sauve.com/2020/03/take-me-out-to-the-ball-game-1949/)
12. ["Take Me Out to the Ball Game" National Recording Registry essay, Library of Congress](https://www.loc.gov/static/programs/national-recording-preservation-board/documents/TakeMeOutToTheBallGame.pdf)
13. [The Baseball Film in Postwar America](https://ndl.ethernet.edu.et/bitstream/123456789/77438/1/245.pdf)
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*Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Films and standalone screen works › Individual films by title and year › Musical and music films (individual works) › Musical films of the 1930s to 1960s*
*Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 21, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026*
*Copyright 2026 EdgeChat AI, a subsidiary of Biostate AI.*
License: Edgepedia Community License 1.0, https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license