Last year, on the cusp of the Cubs’ appearance in the playoffs, ComCast Sports announcer Dave Kaplan wanted to know if fans were committed to this team or too gun-shy from past failures to wear their hearts on their sleeves. Ted Norstrom, who was watching the broadcast, thought, “I’m all in,” and set about writing a CD about his beloved team.

Ted is from Twin Lakes, Wisconsin, just over the Illinois border, the son of former Wrigleyville denizens, and has lived through the disappointments of 1984, 1989, 1998, 2003 and, of course, last year. Ted, who played baseball all the way through childhood and high school, started writing songs in college and played in a band in the mid-90s. With his CD, Believe It, Achieve It: Music For Cubs Fans, Ted managed to combine his two great passions in life. With musical influences ranging from Jimmy Buffett to John Hiatt to Lyle Lovett, Ted has made a record that tells the story of Cubs fans and their addiction to a lovable losing team.

These are fun, sometimes funny, songs, catchy as pop tunes and endearing as timeless salutes to Our Team. Ted’s CD, ACHIEVE IT, BELIEVE IT is available on cdbaby.com and iTunes, as well as on his website www.musicforcubsfans.com.

In this video, filmed during the July 8, 2008 Lovable Losers Literary Revue at El Jardin in Chicago, Ted performs "Just One Bad Century," a song inspired by the website of the same name.

Just One Bad Century from Randy Richardson on Vimeo.

At Wrigley Field, they sing. Some are Cubs fans, some are just on publicity tours and wouldn’t be able to tell Ernie Banks (aka, Mr. Cub) from Ernie Broglio (best remembered as the “other player” in the ultimately lopsided trade that sent future Baseball Hall of Fame outfielder Lou Brock from the Cubs to the Cardinals in 1964). They’re ex-Cubs, broadcasters, politicians, local high school and college coaches, actors, and, now and then, even professional singers. They all come out in the WGN broadcast booth during the seventh-inning stretch to sing “Take Me Out to the Ballgame,” a song written by Jack Norworth in 1908, the same year, coincidentally, the Cubs last won the World Series. That Tin Pan Alley song has become the unofficial anthem of baseball and a staple of Wrigley Field since it was first made popular there by broadcast legend Harry Caray.

In that booth, singers are judged by the 40,000 Cubs fans in the ballpark. Typically, they don’t expect much. They’ll forgive you for being off-key but not if you don’t know the words (just ask NASCAR driver Jeff Gordon). Even singers by trade have had rough nights at the old ballgame (just look to rock singer Ozzy Ozbourne). And being a local sports legend doesn’t necessarily let you off the hook, either (just ask Mike Ditka or Steve McMichael).

Some have argued, maybe rightfully so, that it is time to mercifully put this Wrigley Field tradition to an end. They say it has become old, tiresome, stale.

Maybe instead of killing it off it just needs a new spark, something to make it different and interesting or even a little weird or freaky.

Enter Sid Yiddish, Chicago coordinator of the Bathroom Poetry Project, and his throat singing rendition of “Take Me Out to the Ballgame,” performed at the Lovable Losers Literary Revue on May 7. (For those who don’t know, like us here at the Revue, Wikipedia informs that throat singing, also known as overtone chanting, or harmonic singing, is a type of singing in which the singer manipulates the harmonic resonances created as air travels from the lungs, past the vocal folds, and out the lips to produce a melody. The best-known of the traditional forms comes from Tuva, a small autonomous republic within the Russian Federation.)

By popular demand, the Losers now share Sid with the rest of the world, whether it's ready for him or not.  

7th Inning Stretch? from Randy Richardson on Vimeo.