One of the most enduring Jewish contributions to the national pastime came not from the bat of Hank Greenberg or the arm of Sandy Koufax, but from a couple of Tin Pan Alley tunesmiths.

Even those who don’t know the difference between a ground ball and ground coffee recognize Albert Von Tilzer’s tune and Jack Norworth’s words. More than 1,200 songs have been written about the game, but none is more famous than “Take Me Out to the Ballgame.”

According to legend, Norworth and Von Tilzer had never attended a baseball game until years after the song became a hit. Norworth said he got the idea for the song from an advertisement for the New York Giants he saw while riding on the subway.

Until Sept. 11, 2001, when it was replaced by or supplemented with “God Bless America,” the song had been a seventh-inning stretch standard since broadcaster Harry Caray first crooned it at Chicago White Sox games some 40 years ago.

The musicians were no one-hit wonders. Von Tilzer’s portfolio includes “Apple Blossom Time” and “Put Your Arms Around Me Honey”; Norworth wrote more than 2,500 songs, including “Shine On, Harvest Moon” and several other lesser-known baseball ditties. A handwritten draft of his lyrics for “Take Me Out” — with crossed out words, misspellings, and the double negative “I don’t care if I never get back…” — is part of “Baseball as America,” a traveling exhibit sponsored by the Baseball Hall of Fame.

Andy Strasberg has perhaps the largest collection of “Take Me Out” memorabilia, with more than 350 recordings at last count, he said during a telephone interview with NJ Jewish News.

It is an eclectic array not only of singers, but also of media, including various types of vinyl records, wax cylinders, piano rolls, and reel-to-reel tapes. His first acquisition, as an eight-year-old in 1957, was a yellow, seven-inch 45 RPM, a recording rendered by an unlikely combo: baseball stars Roy Campanella, Tommy Heinrich, and Ralph Kiner. Strasberg called a 1908 cylinder performed by Edwin Meeker — the first known recording of the song — his most prized possession.

Strasberg rattled off other favorite versions: “The Ink Spots, in the 1940s — I’m getting goose bumps just thinking about it. King Curtis did a great rendition. Carly Simon did a beautiful job on Ken Burns’ baseball documentary. The Ferko String Band plays in the Philadelphia Mummers parade. Their sound is very unique; it’s like a band of banjos celebrating every song in a sped-up version.”

In addition to his audio artifacts, Strasberg uncovered videos of unlikely celebrities performing the song, including Jerry Lee Lewis banging it out on Shindig, a rock and roll TV dance show from the 1960s, and Harpo Marx’s rendition on his namesake in an episode of I Love Lucy.

Strasberg, a sports marketing consultant who spent 22 years as marketing manager for the San Diego Padres, said he has no idea what his treasure is worth. “I have no interest in having it appraised. It’s a collection of enjoyment or, according to my wife, obsessive compulsive disorder.”