"Talkin' Baseball (Willie, Mickey & The Duke)" is a 1981 song written and performed by Terry Cashman. The song describes the history of American major league baseball from the 1950s to the beginning of the 1980s. The song was originally released during the 1981 Major League Baseball strike, and was inspired by a picture of the three outfielders of the title (Willie Mays, Mickey Mantle, and Duke Snider) together. (Joe DiMaggio was also in the photograph, but he was left out of the song and airbrushed from the record's picture sleeve.) The original sheet music for the song is a part of the Cooperstown Collection, and Cashman was honored at the 2011 Hall Of Fame weekend.
Each version begins with a synthesized version of the first ten notes of the song "Take me Out to the Ballgame", before the singing starts. Each version ends on a fade.
A modified version of the song entitled "Talkin' Softball," also sung by Cashman, appeared in the February 20, 1992, episode of The Simpsons ("Homer at the Bat"). It can also be found on the 1999 CD compilation Go Simpsonic With the Simpsons. It closes out the It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia episode "The Gang Beats Boggs.
Later versions
The song quickly gained popularity among baseball fans, and soon Cashman began recording alternate versions of the song, each focusing on a single major-league team. In some cases, the team-specific versions have been rewritten and updated over time.