This was one of those things that just pop into my head for no reason: the old Ballantine Beer jingle, vintage 1960–from an ad on the Jean Shepherd show, no less.
I was too young to stay up and listen to Jean Shepherd. For us kids, “Hey, getcha cold beer!” meant New York Yankees baseball broadcasts. The Giants and Dodgers had deserted us, and there were no Mets yet, so it was Yankees all summer long. Brought to you by Gillette Razor Blades (“You’ll look sharp, and you’ll feel sharp, too!”) and Ballantine, brewed right here in New Jersey. Mel Allen in the broadcast booth, saying “How about that!” And it was mostly day games, back them.
And also in the daytime, the crack of the bat from the athletic field next door, where some of the guys on the high school baseball team would get together for a pick-up game. On rare occasions, they would allow some of us 11-year-olds to play with them. Oh, paradise! I hit a home run once, in one of those games: I’ll never forget it.
I wasn’t old enough to drink beer, but for some reason I really dug those Ballantine commercials. No school, play all day long, clip baseball cards to our bikes so they’d rub against the spokes and sound like a motor–yeah: it was good.
