Take me out with the crowd

In a sad and tragic news week, one smaller sad story: former Phillies organist Paul Richardson died Monday at age 74 (more here from the Inky).

The recorded sound effects they play at ball games now can be fun, and the repertoire of pop songs is finally expanding beyond Gary Glitter's "Rock and Roll," but there's still nothing like a stadium organ for pumping up the crowd, and the home team, and making you feel like you're at a ball game.

And Richardson was good, even if sometimes his timing was odd (two out, bases empty, Phillies down by four and Calvin Maduro batting isn't really the right scenario for that "DUM dum dum dum" rally music).

You can hear Paul Richardson's delightful stretch-time version of "Take Me Out to the Ball Game" here. I sang along with that version dozens of times at the Vet and at Citizens Bank Park and I'm sorry I won't get to do that again.

Two brief Paul Richardson memories: During the '90s, my friends and I had these epic annual video scavenger hunts called "FilmQuest." The official list was 50+ pages long and it included a lot of high-point-value items that we figured nobody could ever possibly do, things like "Team member playing 'Heart and Soul' on the Veterans Stadium organ during a Phillies game.'" But somewhere around here I have a videotape of my friend Amy scoring 1,000 points for her team doing exactly that — her playing the bass part with Richardson playing the melody. He was, as always, gracious and a good sport.

A few years after that, I heard Paul Richardson play an entire concert of organ music, although not by choice. I was rehearsing some Bad Dinner Theater at a banquet facility somewhere in Primos, Pa. That same night, in the adjacent room, Richardson was the Special Guest Performer for the monthly meeting of a group called something like the Delaware County Organ Enthusiasts Club. Shouting over the enthusiastically cheesy Tin Pan Alley classics blaring next door turned out to be good preparation for shouting over the drunken audiences who would eventually come to see our own enthusiastically cheesy production of an "interactive murder-mystery comedy." It wasn't an ideal rehearsal situation, but it was also kind of fun, interrupting our run-through to sing along with the crowd on the other side of the wall on "The Daring Young Man on the Flying Trapeze."

Anyway, rest in peace, Paul Richardson. And thank you.

(Note: You may have noticed that I've tip-toed around the subject of baseball here without mentioning the current playoffs. I kept meaning to post something back in May when a certain team took control of the NL East, but they kept winning and I started to worry about jinxing them. Now, with only 2/5 of their starting rotation healthy, they're up two games to none in the first round and I'm not about to risk posting something at this point.)