When the Giants Come to Town It's Bye Bye Baby Who Wrote It
Watching Aubrey Huff's clutch 9th inning home run on TV to tie the Padres in San Diego Thursday night I enjoyed Duane Kuiper's dramatic call, "It'due south outta here!" And when the Giants finished batting in the ninth inning the station replayed Huff'south Hr before going to commercial with the familiar chords of "Goodbye farewell baby!"
All long-time Giants fans know "Bye bye infant" as the Giants battle hymn going dorsum to the '60s. Information technology was based on Giants' journalist Russ Hodges signature home run call. Only what y'all may non know is Russ use to say, "Bye cheerio baby" when the other squad likewise hit a home run. It was actually overwhelming feedback from Giants fans who made "Cheerio bye baby" the signature phone call for Giants' HRs. Here'southward the story behind "Cheerio bye baby" every bit told past Russ Hodges(*) himself:
"Everybody in my business has a favorite expression, and sometimes it catches on beyond his wildest dreams. That'due south what happened to Mel Allen'due south "How nearly that?" which has go part of the American language. Whenever somebody on the Giants hits a home run, I say, "Adieu bye baby," and our fans have picked it up and made it their own. It's a battle cry, which any western follower of the Giants instantly recognizes, and we now fifty-fifty have a song based on it.
This tune, which was conceived 1 day in 1962 by Aaron Edwards, a popular KSFO announcer, is inappreciably a archetype in the mold of "On Wisconsin" or "The Washington Postal service March," but it doesn't sound bad when it's played loudly enough and it's easy to sing. People at Candlestick Park get plenty of chances to sing information technology because whenever something good happens to the guild, Lloyd Fob belts it out on the organ weekdays while Del Courtney and his band play it on Sundays.
I'd been using the term "Bye cheerio babe" for dwelling house runs since 1954, but New Yorkers never adopted information technology. To them information technology was simply another pet expression by a sports' announcer, such as many of united states have. Mel Allen calls a dwelling run by maxim "Information technology's going-going-gone." Harry Caray in St. Louis says, "It might be-it could be- it is a domicile run." Brusque Gowdy in Boston says, "See ya afterwards," and Vince Scully in Los Angeles starts describing the length of the bulldoze, so says, "Forget it, it'south gone."
And then it wasn't I who made "Bye bye baby" famous on the Due west Coast, only the fans of San Francisco. I had always chosen every domicile run that style, whether hit by i of the Giants or somebody on the other team. When I came to San Francisco, I assumed I'd simply keep right on doing it.
The start home run on opening twenty-four hour period in 1958 was hit past Daryl Spencer in the fourth inning. Every bit the brawl went into the stands, I said, "Bye bye baby," just as I e'er had in New York. Orlando Cepeda hit 1 in the fifth, and I said it again. I didn't think much about it either time.
The side by side solar day, Duke Snider of the Dodgers came up in the third inning and belted a tremendous shot over the right field argue, which veteran observers said was the longest home run ever striking at Seals Stadium. The infinitesimal information technology left the bat we all knew it was gone, and I yelled, "Bye adieu baby." A fiddling afterward Dick Grayness hit ane for the Dodgers, so I said it once more.
Before the game was over, nosotros began getting phone calls from fans objecting to my using "Bye adieu infant" in describing Dodgers' homers. When I stopped in at the studio later, I found out that people had been calling upwards all afternoon nigh it, and the next twenty-four hours nosotros had an absolute flood of letters.
"If you're going to say 'Goodbye farewell baby' at all," a woman wrote from Marin Canton, "use it but for our side. We don't desire to hear it when somebody else hits one."
Her alphabetic character was typical of the hundreds that came in. So when I went to the ballpark that day, I saw my duty and I did it. Gino Cimoli of the Dodgers hit 1 out of the park in the second inning and I just called it a home run. Just when Bob Schmidt of the Giants banged one in the fourth, I gleefully howled, "Goodbye farewell baby." I approximate everybody was happy, because the mail was predominantly favorable."
And that'south how "Bye bye baby" was officially born as the sectional abode run call of the San Francisco Giants on Thursday, April 17 during the third game of the 1958 flavor. And the Giants beat the Dodgers 7-4.
(*) Russ Hodges and Al Hirschberg,
My Giants
(Doubleday, Garden City, NY: 1963) pp. 168-169.
Source: https://punkyg.wordpress.com/2011/07/17/its-outta-here-and-the-birth-of-bye-bye-baby/
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