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NCAA News Archive - 2010

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Jun 29, 2010 8:42:17 AM

OMAHA, Nebraska – If you've ever attended a Men's College World Series game at Rosenblatt Stadium in the last 50 years, you've probably clapped your hands or bobbed your head to the organ music in between innings.

Lambert Bartak is the man behind the music.

The 91-year-old organist began playing at Rosenblatt in the mid-1950s whenever a substitute was needed.

For the last 30 years, he's been the regular behind the Hammond organ at the ballpark. Whenever the decision is made not to go with music piped in over the public address system, Bartak takes over entertaining the fans.

This year's CWS is the last to be played at Rosenblatt Stadium. While plans have been made to move the organ, which was made in 1935, to the new TD Ameritrade Park, Bartak said he doesn't plan to be behind the keyboard.

He will say goodbye to the CWS after the final out is recorded in the championship series between South Carolina and UCLA, either Tuesday or Wednesday night.

"I'm not planning to go to the new stadium," said Bartak, who has worked as a musician since the age of 15.

His wife of 64 years, Jeri, added: "He was looking forward to this year, because it is the end. He'll be 92 next year. You can't keep going forever."

Bartak said it was touch-and-go as to whether he would play at this year's CWS.

In February, he slipped on some ice and suffered a broken bone near his left shoulder and strained his back.

"That's why I'm using this cane now," said Bartak, who grew up in Norfolk, Nebraska, before moving to Omaha after being discharged from the Army after World War II. "I'm all healed up mostly. My back still hurts, but I'm able to play."

 Bartak has sheets of music underneath his bench, and from the faded yellowish color, it looks like they've been around for 50 years, too. Included in this collection of songs are the fight songs of teams that have appeared in the CWS.

But Bartak rarely reads the music while he's playing.

"I play by memory," Bartak said. "We have a coordinator, and when he raises his hand I just start playing."

Bartak even takes requests. Before Saturday's game between TCU and UCLA, Bartak said someone asked him to play New York, New York.

"Mostly, I just play by what I feel," Bartak said.

Once in 1988 that didn't work out too well for him. During an Omaha Royals minor-league game, Bartak began tapping out the theme to the Mickey Mouse Club. At the time, there was an argument going on about a called strike, and the umpires didn't take kindly to his selection. Bartak was ejected from the park that night but came back the next day.

Bartak began playing the accordion after watching his father, Jim, play the instrument.

After his military service in World War II, he received a call from a friend about a job playing in the studio of Omaha radio station WOW, where he worked alongside Johnny Carson.

He also put together a band, appropriately named "The Lambert Bartak Orchestra."

"I've worked all over the country as a musician," said Bartak, who has three children, seven grandchildren and nine great grandchildren. "We were together 15 to 20 years. We played bar mitzvahs and weddings. This is all I've ever done."

Rosenblatt Stadium and the CWS will always be special memories for the Bartaks.

"How could it not?" Jeri Bartak said. "Our kids ran all over this place. We don't live too far from here, and it is a beautiful place."

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