Nebraska Organist Adds Musical Flare to College World Series

The game of baseball is filled with sounds. There's the ball hitting the bat. The fans cheering on their team. And, if you're lucky, even some music played on an organ to give the game a truly authentic feel.

Jerry Pawlak doesn’t play baseball, doesn’t even cheer for a baseball team, but few can match his musical prowess pumping the pedals and letting his fingers dance across the keys of the organ high above the field in the press box at the College World Series in Omaha.

"I feel the crowd, and I know if they’re really into the game and doing a lot of cheering and stuff, and I’ll play appropriate songs for that. That’s what I try to do," Pawlak said.

Jerry was born in Chicago in the early 1940’s, appropriately the same week and in the same city where the first organ music was played at a major league baseball game. He eventually got good enough at playing the organ to do it in public.

"Well, the restaurants in Chicago, in the day, in the fifties and the sixties, had organ bars, and I went to a couple of those places and I said, 'I think I can play better than the guy who’s there,' and walked into my first restaurant that I played at for 16 years, and did a little audition, and he says, 'Our organist just quit. You got the job,'" Jerry said.

Jerry’s work with the Burlington Railroad eventually brought him to Nebraska. And a decade ago, when the College World Series moved from its longtime home at Rosenblatt Stadium to the new T.D. Ameritrade Park, longtime organist Lambert Bartak, who had played at the World Series for 43 years, decided not to make the move.

"He didn’t want to move here, and they were doing auditions and I went to the audition, and they hired me right on the spot, so to speak. Yeah. That was ten years ago and I’m still here."

Jerry’s got a great seat for all the games. He sits behind the organ on the fourth floor looking out over home plate with a fantastic view of the stadium. He’s watched hundreds of College World Series games from this spot making him the envy of baseball fans. Yet, Jerry isn’t really a baseball fan at all.

"Truthfully, I’m not. I’m not a sports fan," Jerry said. "I grew up with a musical family and we did music, and none of my family plays sports.

"Basically, this is a show. It’s entertainment. It’s a show, and my job is to entertain people."

And Jerry is good at his job. He hits all the right notes, especially on that one song every baseball fan wants to sing.

The seventh inning stretch is the reason, the most part and the reason why I’m here. Everybody likes to sing “Take Me Out To The Ballgame."

And when the whole crowd is standing and singing to his music, "I feel great. The louder they sing, the greater I feel."

As great as that feeling is, Jerry doesn’t limit his skills to the baseball park, or even to the organ.

He also plays piano at the Von Maur clothing store in Lincoln. It’s a more intimate setting and the music reflects that. It’s a perfect fit for these shoppers looking for a perfect fit.

"My favorite thing is when somebody is walking down the aisle in and out of the store, and they’re dancing, more or less dance-walking to the music," Jerry said.

Whether his audience is walking down the aisle of a department store, or the aisles of the cheap seats in the outfield, Jerry always seems to know just the right notes to make them smile.

"I’m just here to do the job and have a good time," Jerry said. "And hopefully the audience has a good time as well."

Watch this video story on College World Series organist Jerry Pawlak from our Nebraska Stories program on Nebraska Public Media.