text: After the first four games of the 1903 World Series, Boston was down 1-3 to the Pittsburgh Pirates. (It was a best-of-nine series; five wins were needed to win the series.) The Royal Rooters began rallying their team with every song they could think of; ultimately "Tessie" helped win the day. There are stories that the Royal Rooters actually traveled to Pittsburgh and hired a band to play "Tessie" to annoy the Pirates on their home field. Pittsburgh outfielder Tommy Leach credited at least part of Boston's win to "that damn 'Tessie' song." He continued: "It was a real hum-dinger of a song, but it sort of got on your nerves after a while."
  Boston won Game 5 and went on to win Games 6, 7, and 8 to win the Series. The Boston fans remembered "Tessie" fondly through the years; Burt Mustin, who decades later became a prolific "old man" character actor in movies and television, was still regaling audiences with "Tessie" stories while in his nineties.
  The chorus to the original "Tessie" goes:
  Tessie, you make me feel so badly.
  Why don't you turn around?
  Tessie, you know I love you madly.
  Babe, my heart weighs about a pound.
  Don't blame me if I ever doubt you,
  You know I wouldn't live without you.
  Tessie, you are the only, only, only.
  The fans began inventing their own lyrics to taunt the Pittsburgh players, such as:
  Honus, why do you hit so badly?