Baseball
and the
Wind Band
An American Story
You've heard of Go, Cubs, Go!, but have you heard of Cubs On Parade? Before the billy goat, and long before Bill Murray, there was an anthem sung to celebrate the Chicago Cubs dynasty of the early 1900s that has been long since forgotten... until now.
The intertwining story of the American wind band and baseball fandom at the turn of the twentieth century, and the dawn of the World Series.
You may know of John Philip Sousa as "The March King," but did you know that he also considered himself the king of the pitching mound?
“Base ball is our game, the American game.”
– Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass
“The ability of the band to fluently embrace America’s vernacular and cultivated traditions is a unique phenomenon in its existence from the eighteenth century to the present day.”
– Richard K. Hansen, The American Wind Band: A Cultural History
Portions of this research have been presented at:
The 31st Cooperstown Symposium on Baseball and American Culture at the National Baseball Hall of Fame, Cooperstown, New York.
The 2018 College Band Directors National Association Eastern Division Conference, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut.
