In 1975, Baltimore Orioles officials searched for popular music recordings to play during the seventh inning stretch instead of the organ version of the traditional "Take Me Out to the Ballpark."
They found John Denver.For more than 20 years, Denver's song "Thank God I'm a Country Boy" has blared over the loudspeakers during the seventh inning stretch at Baltimore Orioles games - inexplicably becoming a standard in a gritty, blue-collar port.
During the late 1980s and early '90s, then team chairman Eli Jacobs tried to abandon the song for the traditional seventh-inning stretch, but fans revolted.
"The club was inundated with phone calls and letters," Maroon said.
In 1991, Denver informally agreed to perform the song again if the Orioles returned to the World Series, Steinberg said. But Denver, 53, died Sunday in a plane crash.
O's fans love to whoop and clap with the lyrics, sort of a bookend to the shouted "Oh!" in the Star Spangled Banner before each game.
"Because it was a live recording, you hear the applause at the end and fans would hoot and holler," said Charles Steinberg, the team's former public relations director who now is a senior vice president with the San Diego Padres.
One of the songs turned down for the gig was Seals and Crofts' "Summer Breeze."
"They were these songs now considered middle of the road, but at the time seemed hip," Steinberg said.
The lyrics begin: "Well, I got me a fife and I got my old fiddle. The sun's coming up, I got cakes on the griddle. Life ain't nothing but a funny, funny riddle. Thank God I'm a country boy."
The Denver song really caught on during 1979, when the Orioles went to the World Series, where they lost the seventh game. The next time the Orioles made it to the World Series, in 1983, Denver performed the still-popular song atop the dugout.
Just last month in Baltimore, where Denver was performing a concert, he clapped his hands and danced with the Orioles mascot on the home dugout while the song was played during a game against the Detroit Tigers.
"The fans went berserk," said John Maroon, the team's public relations director.
Mark Espenshade, 32, a bartender at Pickles Pub across from Oriole Park at Camden Yards, said the city has a deceptively large number of country music fans like himself who enjoy the song.
"It has an upbeat tempo. Everybody gets pretty crazy during the seventh inning, even though we haven't had much to cheer about lately," he said.
The Orioles beat the Cleveland Indians 4-2 Monday night, sending the seven-game series back to Baltimore for Game 5 on Wednesday.
The team doesn't plan a public memorial for Denver, just as the recent deaths of Princess Diana and Mother Theresa were not recognized during games because of the sensitive nature of honoring the dead, Maroon said.
But the song, Maroon said, will stay.