(American English), Alex Rodriguez (Caribbean Spanish), Chan Ho Park (Korean), Kazuhiro Sasaki (Japanese), Graeme Lloyd (Australian English), Éric Gagné (Québécois French), Andruw Jones (Dutch), John Franco (Italian), Iván Rodríguez (Caribbean Spanish), and Mark McGwire (American English). The players and languages featured were Ken Griffey Jr. In 2001, Nike aired a commercial featuring a diverse group of Major League Baseball players singing lines of the song in their native languages.
John and pop singer Carly Simon both recorded different versions of the song for the PBS documentary series Baseball, by Ken Burns. Multiple genre Louisiana singer-songwriter Dr. An alternative rock version by the Goo Goo Dolls was also recorded. In the mid-1990s, a Major League Baseball ad campaign featured versions of the song performed by musicians of several different genres. In the early to mid-1980s, the Kidsongs Kids recorded a different version of this song for A Day at Old MacDonald's Farm.
The first verse of the 1927 version is sung by Gene Kelly and Frank Sinatra at the start of the MGM musical film, Take Me Out to the Ball Game (1949), a movie that also features a song about the famous and fictitious double play combination, O'Brien to Ryan to Goldberg. It has been used as an instrumental underscore or introduction to many films or skits having to do with baseball. The original music and 1908 lyrics of the song are now in the public domain in the United States (worldwide copyright remains until 70 years after the composers' deaths), but the copyright to the revised 1927 lyrics remains in effect. The song (or at least its chorus) has been recorded or cited countless times since it was written. Also, there is a noticeable pause between the first and second words "root". Though not so indicated in the lyrics, the chorus is usually sung with a pause in the middle of the word "Cracker", giving 'Cracker Jack' a pronunciation "Crac-ker Jack". Carly Simon's version, produced for Ken Burns' 1994 documentary Baseball, reads "Ev'ry cent/Katie spent". In French the expression 'sans le sou' means penniless.
The Haydn Quartet singing group, led by popular tenor Harry MacDonough, recorded a successful version on Victor Records. (Norworth and Bayes were famous for writing and performing such smash hits as " Shine On, Harvest Moon".) With the sale of so many records, sheet music, and piano rolls, the song became one of the most popular hits of 1908. Norworth wrote an alternative version of the song in 1927. It was played at a ballpark for the first known time in 1934, at a high-school game in Los Angeles it was played later that year during the fourth game of the 1934 World Series. (Norworth and Von Tilzer finally saw their first Major League Baseball games 32 and 20 years later, respectively.) The song was first sung by Norworth's then-wife Nora Bayes and popularized by many other vaudeville acts.
The words were set to music by Albert Von Tilzer. She accepts the date, but only if her date will take her out to the baseball game. In the song, Katie's (and later Nelly's) beau calls to ask her out to see a show. Jack Norworth, while riding a subway train, was inspired by a sign that said "Baseball Today – Polo Grounds".