These organ concerts turn your home into a ballpark

It's so much more than 'Take Me Out to the Ball Game'

April 7th, 2020

When people talk about missing baseball during the current period of social distancing, they're probably talking about a lot of different things. Sure, we all miss the individual activities that make up the game played on the field -- the home runs, strikeouts, stolen bases and diving catches.

But baseball is so much more than that. Dads everywhere famously love the smell of the grass and the crack of the bat. There's also the simple joy of sitting in the sun with a snack and a beverage and losing oneself in the ambient noise of a ballpark.

There's also the music. The walk-up music. The closer entrance music. And, of course, the music the organist interjects throughout the rest of the game.

If you find yourself missing the ambience of a baseball game, you're in luck. Every day at 3 p.m. Red Sox organist Josh Kantor sits down at his home organ, fires up a Facebook Live stream and plays requests for about 30 minutes. He calls it the "7th-Inning Stretch."

If you have a request, there's a good chance Kantor can make it happen. He has performed with a ton of music acts, and he even gets called on stage to perform with Wilco -- Jeff Tweedy says that Kantor has the ability to play any song by ear, saying it only takes him 20 seconds or so to pick up a tune.

Thanks to Kantor's music, if you're missing baseball and have some free time in the middle of the afternoon, you can experience the sounds of the ballpark in your own home for 30 glorious minutes.