The start of the season brings out the best in baseball songs.
Baseball is a game made for songs. With the conclusion of the thrilling World Baseball Classic and opening day just around the corner, let’s take a listen to some of the best.
We’ll get it started with the Boss. My friend Dolores, who loves baseball and Springsteen with equal passion, would say that’s only right.
The two do seem to go together. In a great piece for the New York Times, Rustin Dodd wrote,
“I once saw a Springsteen concert in Phoenix during spring training and ended up sitting about 10 feet from a veteran major leaguer. He was there with family and stayed rather reserved the whole night, but when ‘The Boss’ started playing ‘Glory Days,’ they all went nuts.”
The marriage between music and baseball dates back more than a century, notes the Times. So let’s go back a few years to Les Brown and His Orchestra’s Joltin’ Joe DiMaggio. “They don’t make ditties like they used to,” writes Andy McCullough in that same New York Times piece. “This right here is a ditty.” The lyrics tell the tale of Joe DiMaggio’s famous 56-game hitting streak.
Last year the Toronto Blue Jays had a marvelous run all the way to the World Series, giving us one of the most memorable fall classics in a long time. The Blue Jays and Dodgers played one for the ages. We’ll salute those valiant warriors from north of the border with OK, Blue Jays!
FOLKIES LOVES BASEBALL
Folkies of all stripes have always had a soft spot for baseball. Here are three. First, Peter, Paul, and Mary’s Right Field followed by John McCutcheon’s Baseball on The Block.
And then who knew that Bob Freakin’ Dylan wrote a song about Catfish Hunter?!? Well, I bet my friend Oakley Pearson did.
“Lazy stadium night
Catfish on the mound
‘Strike three,’ the umpire said
Batter have to go back and sit down
Catfish, million-dollar-man
Nobody can throw the ball like Catfish can“
CHARACTERS
Baseball is full of interesting, shall we say, “personalities.” Mickey Mantle certainly was one. Andy McCullough had this insightful comment about the ability of baseball and baseball players to affect us in ways that go far beyond the game.
“The footprints that ballplayers leave on our cultural memory extend beyond the diamond. For “The Mick,” his ability to carouse was almost as legendary as his ability to clout a baseball. Hence the line in this mournful tune from a band from Norway of all places: ‘I was feeling Mickey Mantle … wasted.’”
Bill Lee was a true baseball character. As another writer said, his “natural sinkerball is dwarfed in baseball memory by his natural inability to utter a dull sentence.” Warren Zevon captured Lee’s personality brilliantly in only 97 seconds.
PERSONAL MEMORIES
I loved Steve Goodman, as he was an everyman folksinger. When the Cubbies came back to stay alive in the 2016 World Series by winning Game 5, Wrigley Field burst into communal singing with his Go Cubs Go. As the top commentator says, “The best announcers know when to shut up and let the moment speak. Perfect example.” It pairs nicely with Goodman playing A Dying Cubs Fan’s Last Request.
Talking Baseball by Terry Cashman offers a tour through baseball history. Hey, I remember a lot of these guys!
SAY HEY
Willie Mays was my favorite player ever. Full stop. McCullough noted that “(t)here is something soothing about hearing Claude and Cliff Trenier opine about ‘The Say Hey Kid’ running the bases like a choo-choo train and making the turn around second like an aeroplane. I couldn’t agree more.
Willie, of course, played centerfield like no one else. I think John Fogerty’s Centerfield belongs on any list of great baseball songs and not only because it has a role in the best of all baseball films, Bull Durham. All you have to do is be at a ballpark and watch people sing along when it is played to know how much it connects. “Put me in coach” indeed!
PEOPLE ARE GOOD FOR YOU
Baseball is boring. Until it isn’t. Even with the new pitch clock working its magic, there’s still a lot of standing around. There’s time between each half-inning to chat. Before the bottom of the seventh, the entire crowd stands up and sings Take Me Out to the Ballgame—a wonderfully anachronistic moment of civic harmony as seen below at Dodger Stadium.
America needs more communal singing.
It’s time to get out to the ballpark and play ball!
More to come . . .
DJB
Photo of a summer rainbow over Nationals Stadium by DJB
MORE TO COME... 