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ROBERT MERRILL |
 ROBERT MERRILL |
The great baritone's name
is reverred in baseball, too
of TheColumnists.com
There have been something like 20,000 big leaguers
in the 135 years of organized baseball and maybe two billion
fans.
The players come from everywhere, every state in the union, every
kind of community from big cities to rural intersections in the
wildest of woods.
It’s the same way with fans. They come from everywhere.
They have different backgrounds, different ethnic makeups, different
religions, different appearances, different attitudes and different
careers.
What binds us all together, all of us from around the country,
around the world now and unique in our own interests, is simply
the love of the game.
Sit in a ball park in the heat of summer, deep in the stands
in any big league city and watch the bonding of kids of every
race and religion, every national group, every educational and
economic structure. To paraphrase old Shakespeare, “The
game’s the thing in which I’ll watch the hunt for the
ring.”
One of the great voices in 20th century America was lost to the
world last October with the death of the brilliant baritone Robert
Merrill. Bob Merrill died at the age of 87 as he sat at home
in New Rochelle, New York watching the Red Sox win their first
World Series since 1918.
As famous as he was for his magnificent voice and sparkling career,
Merrill was as connected to the game of baseball in the minds
of most who knew him as Babe Ruth was.
Merrill sang the National Anthem at Yankee Stadium Opening Days
for some 30 years with the thrill of his notes reaching out to
the highest bleacher seat fans in the deepest corner of the ball
park.
He had been a longtime pal of Yankee owner George Steinbrenner
and excited the audience even before the first baseball was thrown
in anger. He would often suit up in a Yankee uniform with his
number on the back as fans stood and cheered his rendition of
the country’s song.
Merrill could drive good bumps through your body from head to
toe and back again when he lent his expertise and talent to his
self-styled rendition of the game’s calling card number,
“Take Me Out to The Ball Game.”
Merrill came to this emotion and devotion rightfully as a birthright.
He was born in Brooklyn and grew up as a baseball player in his
neighborhood and a fanatic fan on the long lost but well-remembered
Brooklyn Dodgers.
“I read all the box scores and imitated all the moves of
the players when I was a kid,” he once told me. “Nothing
was more important in my early life than the Brooklyn Dodgers.”
He shared his time on local fields and his love of the game with
another neighborhood kid, Tommy Holmes, who would grow up to
have a lifetime .302 career with the Boston Braves and Brooklyn
Dodgers and even have a shot at managing with the Braves.
“We were just great pals and enjoyed the Dodgers as fans
and played together as much as we could,” Holmes said.
Merrill’s career went off in another direction when his
mother realized her son had an exceptional voice and some professional
training might give him a lifetime on the stage instead of on
the ball field.
Merrill played the Borscht Belt circuit in New York’s summer
mountain retreats before hitting it big with the Metropolitan
Opera. He was the star baritone for over 30 years in the New
York City productions.
Merrill’s career crossed the lines from Metropolitan Opera
performances to concerts with Leontyne Price, theater dates with
Van Cliburn, television appearances with Louis Armstrong and
Anne Bancroft, records with Skitch Henderson and films with Frank
Sinatra, Dean Martin and Abe Burrows.
His love of the game continued throughout his life with constant
visits to Yankee Stadium and constant score updates via radio
and television.
His wife, Marion Merrill, a piano accompanist in their early
days together before family obligations ended her professional
career, shared the love of the game.
They were often seen in George Steinbrenner’s Yankee Stadium
box and at baseball events around New York City and Los Angeles
when their schedule permitted.
Another well known baseball fan, former Mayor Rudolph Giuliani,
told warm tales of sharing baseball events at the Stadium with
Merrill at an incredible memorial for the famed fan and famous
baritone at New York City’s Julliard Theater in December
of 2004.
Price added her magnificent voice to the memorial event and Skitch
Henderson sat down at the piano and played “All The Things
You Are” for the packed theater audience in honor of Robert
Merrill.
Films of Merrill performing and tall stories about his baseball
interest warmed the room on a cold winter afternoon in New York
City.
The sweetest moment of the day came when Marion Merrill and their
grandchildren, Gracie, Clara and Jesse, reminisced in words and
music about the famed singer and lifelong baseball fan.
Robert Merrill had an enormous impact on the cultural life of
America with his magnificent voice and personality. He had an
equally vital impact on the game of baseball with his almost
nine decades of loyalty.
©2005 by Maury Allen.
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