Baseball Music and Songs at the Library of Congress is a research guide specific to baseball music available in print and manuscript in the Music Division’s physical collections and on its website. It tells the story about how no other sport in the United States has come close to rivaling baseball – aka the National Game since the mid-1850s – in capturing the attention and interest of so many American artists and composers and in embedding itself in the very fabric of the United States' culture.

The main goal of this guide is to serve as a portal for the Music Division’s online publication, Baseball’s Greatest Hits: An Annotated Bibliography of Baseball Music and Songs, comprising an annotated inventory of well over 1000 pieces of baseball music compiled alphabetically by title, and multiple appendices that cite additional repertoire as well as reorganize the document’s data chronologically, by team, player, etc. Guidance on what other institutions hold notable baseball music collections is included along with a selected bibliography of relevant books and articles.

Some of the more idiosyncratic pieces that reveal how our National Game is deeply rooted within all genres of American music and culture are worth noting. Tucked away among the more conventional bibliographic entries are:

• the tales surrounding the “blues” related to the barnstorming House of David baseball team and "The House of David Blues"
• a song from Chicago’s White Rats of America labor union that mentions Cub’s catcher Johnny Kling in "If I Had All the Money in the Banks"
• an 1895 show tune titled "Who Would Doubt that I’m a Man?," dedicated to America’s “New Woman”
• Babe Ruth’s musical fundraiser for St. Mary’s Industrial School for Boys, an orphanage and reform school run by the Catholic Church that had been partially destroyed by fire in 1919. For most of his youth, it had been Ruth’s school and home - "Batterin’ Babe, Look at Him Now"

Be sure to visit the online exhibit, Baseball’s Greatest Hits, the digital collection, Baseball Sheet Music, and the research guide, Baseball Resources at the Library of Congress at the links below.

If you have a baseball question, consult our Ask a Librarian service; or, better yet, visit the Performing Arts Reading Room in Washington, D.C. The world’s largest collection of baseball music is waiting there for you!