Favorite 3 Baseball Songs

Legendary Washington area radio DJ Weasel, formerly of WHFS, now does a weekly three-hour program (Weasel’s Wild Weekend) on Towson University’s AAA station WTMD (Friday nights at 7, repeated Saturday at noon). His program always focuses on one or more themes, and last night he devoted the entire show to songs that were more or less about baseball. (The Beatles’ “I’m A Loser” fits into the “less” category, but close enough.)

This wound up being a nice way to take some of the sting out of the Nationals’ disappointing loss to the reviled Braves in their home opener in the afternoon. Although the world doesn’t contain three hours of truly great songs about baseball, it does possess enough that are at least interesting and fun.

At any rate, the show inspired me to come up with a very short list of favorite baseball songs, all of which were included in Weasel’s show.

#3  Take Me Out to the Ball Game -- Bruce Springstone (1982)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8D3PqhHx5eM

I had heard this song back in the day (almost certainly on Weasel’s WHFS show), but until checking Google last night I hadn’t realized that it was a Baltimore/Washington area product. Featured musicians include Washington power-pop legend Tommy Keane on guitar and the renowned Ron Holloway on saxophone. Baltimore’s Tom Chalkley does a great Springsteen impersonation, and to top things off, it was engineered at Hit & Run Studios (how appropriate) right here in Rockville.

 

#2  A Dying Cubs Fan's Last Request -- Steve Goodman (1984)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7xBxZGQ1dJk  

To the extent that Steve Goodman is known at all, it’s as the writer of “City of New Orleans”, which was popularized by Arlo Guthrie and recorded by many others. Goodman wrote and recorded quite a few other great songs during his short lifetime, but this one is definitely a must-hear for any baseball fan, of the Cubbies or otherwise.

Trivia note: among Goodman’s high-school classmates in Chicago was one Hillary Rodham.

 

#1  When My Buckner Moment Comes -- Dan Bern (2012)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ef5mlTzlErE
http://danbern.bandcamp.com/track/when-my-buckner-moment-comes (lyrics, audio only)

I heard this one for the first time last night, promptly added it to my iTunes collection, and have played it half a dozen times or so since. Calling it a great baseball song wouldn’t be quite accurate – it’s a great song about life, with baseball as a reference point. (Apologies to Katie and other Red Sox fans for dredging up any painful memories.)

April 4, 2014 – Braves 2, Nationals 1 – Nationals Park (home opener)

Some excitement, same old result

Weather: 55 degrees, overcast.

Wind: 5 mph, R to L.

T: 3:03.

Att: 42,834.

Umpires: HP: Cory Blaser. 1B: Jim Joyce. 2B: Doug Eddings. 3B: Marvin Hudson.

Section 129, Row TT, Seat 17 (decided to splurge on lower-level seats for the home opener – 4 seats on the aisle in the next-to-last row of Section 129, on the first-base side behind the Nats dugout) 

In what was becoming a theme, the weather forecast for Friday’s home opener was unsettled at best for most of the past week. By Thursday, it seemed that there might at least be a window of dryness in the afternoon that would allow the game to be played. Things actually turned out for the best, as there was no rain until much later in the day. It wasn’t exactly warm, but the lack of wind in our seats made for a reasonably comfortable experience, although it felt chillier in the more-exposed lower concourse.

Since we were planning to meet at Nando’s Peri-Peri at 11:00 for an early lunch, I headed down early on Metro, beating the big rush. The Weekend section of the Washington Post featured a nice write-up (and map, although unfortunately the latter didn’t appear in my browser) of area dining options, so I strolled around for a bit checking out the neighborhood to the east of the Park.

Tanner Roark was originally scheduled to start the home opener, but he was moved up to start (and win) the Thursday game with the Mets, as Jordan Zimmermann was scratched with flu-like symptoms. (Hopefully I will get to see Tanner pitch sometime this year.) Fortunately Jordan felt much better on Friday, turning in 5 strong innings highlighted by 9 strikeouts, with the only damage being an Evan Gattis homer leading off the 5^th.

Things got more interesting in the bottom of the inning, when Ian Desmond led off by hitting a shot that got stuck under the padding on the left-field wall. The play was initially ruled an inside-the-park home run, but on replay was changed to a ground-rule double. Desmond didn’t improve the situation by getting tossed out attempting to steal third base with no one out, one of three Nats baserunners erased on plays that were not particularly close. (While smart aggression is a good thing, cavalierly giving away precious outs is not.)

Tyler Clippard joined Desmond in violating a fundamental baseball maxim by walking the leadoff batter in the 8^th inning, who naturally came around to score, giving the Braves (and their outstanding bullpen) a 2-1 lead. (The Nats had tied the game in the sixth on a Ryan Zimmerman sac fly, after Atlanta second baseman Dan Uggla misplayed what was likely a double-play ball off the bat of Adam LaRoche.)

Given the near-unhittability of Braves closer Craig Kimbrel, it behooved the Nats to get at least one run in the bottom of the 8^th before he came into the game. They started off well against David Carpenter with a Rendon single and a four-pitch walk to Jayson Werth, with the heart of the batting order coming up. Things deteriorated quickly after that, as Carpenter fanned LaRoche, Zimmerman, and Harper. Against Kimbrel in the 9^th, Desmond and Lobaton extended the string of consecutive Ks to 5 before pinch-hitter Kevin Frandsen popped out to end it.

A big part of the Nats underachievement in 2013 was their inability to beat division rival Atlanta (13 losses in 19 games). One game does not a season make, but the loss in the home opener certainly magnifies the importance of Stephen Strasburg’s start on Saturday. Despite Washington’s apparent improvements and Atlanta’s currently-crippled starting rotation, the Braves are still the kings of the NL East hill until the Nats prove otherwise.

Hoping to beat the worst of the crowd, I headed straight for Metro the second that Frandsen’s foul pop settled into Freddie Freeman’s glove – being near the back of a section in the lower level helped considerably. As I had hoped, the crowd waiting to get into the station was quite manageable (actually better than at many night games with much smaller crowds). The trip back was relatively pleasant – I didn’t have to wait more than a couple minutes for either train, and had a seat for the entire trip on the Red Line. I got back to Shady Grove around 5:20, which certainly beats the toxic traffic mix of a normal Washington rush hour with a sold-out Nats crowd.

Although forewarned, I was still surprised that in the top of the seventh I had to wait in a 5-minute line for the men’s room, which represents a personal Nats Park record for me. I was also surprised that the much-promoted “G at Nationals Park” sandwich shop was closed up at that point – not sure whether it may have been open earlier, although it was at the canceled March 29^th exhibition game.

And there was a foul ball into our section (although nowhere near us) very early in the game, which is something that we don’t get in our usual Section 416.

 

 

 

 

 

Serendipity #11

Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out – Bruce Springsteen (1975)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LUjivw_-W0Y

Heard 4/3/2014 around 9:30am, Wegman’s in Germantown

March 29, 2014 – Nationals vs. Tigers (exhibition) rained out – Nationals Park

Goofy optimism or cynical exploitation? 

Section 416, Row G, Seat 2 – four rows in back of our usual location (more below) 

I’m obviously not supposed to see the Nats play Detroit this year – the Nats-Tigers exhibition game I was supposed to see earlier in March in Lakeland, Florida was also canceled due to rain. Even the scheduled starting pitchers were the same – Anibal Sanchez for the Tigers and Tanner Roark for the Nats.

The weather forecast for Saturday’s preseason exhibition at Nationals Park had been pretty bleak for the preceding several days, and it had not improved by Saturday morning: rain, sometimes heavy, expected pretty much all day. Given the forecast, and the fact that it was only an exhibition game, I really expected the team to announce by 10 or 11 Saturday morning that the game was canceled, in order to save everyone from a wasted trip. No such announcement came, however, and according to the WTOP 12:15 sports segment, the Nats had indicated that they were still going to try to get the game in. So, grumbling to myself, I headed for the Shady Grove Metro station. I normally drive to weekend games, but the Navy Yard Metro station is much closer to Nats Park than is my normal parking location (thus minimizing my walk in the expected rain), and there was no aggravating “weekend track work” (suspended due to cherry blossom season) to mess up the commute.

Metro was much less busy than usual; very few people were waiting to transfer to the Green Line at Gallery Place, and I had no trouble getting a seat on either the Red Line or Green Line section of the trip. A light rain was falling as I arrived, the tarp was on the field, and it didn’t look like there were more than several thousand people on hand at most. I took a lap around the lower level of the park before heading to our seats around 1:45 for the scheduled 2:05 start. Since each of the 4 20-game ticket plans included the March 29^th game, we were not in our usual locations (416/C/1-4), but instead had seats 2-5 in Row G. I had expected that since we were 4 rows further back that we would at least be able to stay dry, but the wind was blowing the rain in our direction, so after a couple of minutes I announced that I was going to find a dry spot and headed for the enclosed elevator lobby, where the Pierce clan found me 5 or 10 minutes later. Right around 2:00, someone else who was waiting there told everyone the Nats had just tweeted that the game had been canceled. The nearby video monitor posted the announcement a couple minutes later.

The non-cynical side of me would like to think that the Nats management genuinely thought there was a reasonable shot at getting the game in, as opposed to delaying the announcement of the cancellation just to get some of us fools to come down and buy concessions and souvenirs. Unfortunately, I don’t have any evidence whatsoever to support this theory. (The weather forecast, by the way, turned out to be completely correct.)

Serendipity #10

Alison – Elvis Costello (1977)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C9GlC9GyF4Y

Heard 3/26/2014 around 6:15, Potbelly (downtown Rockville location)

Second career?

Rice University just hired Mike Rhoades as their head men’s basketball coach. Rhoades was most recently the associate head coach to Shaka Smart at VCU.

http://wtvr.com/2014/03/27/mike-rhoades-introduced-at-rice-university/

The story doesn’t mention that Rhoades graduated from my alma mater, Lebanon Valley College, and in 1994 led the Flying Dutchmen to the NCAA Division III national championship.

http://www.godutchmen.com/news/2014/3/19/MBB_0319142142.aspx

So, Mike Rhoades, we salute you, despite not spelling your last name correctly.   ;-)

Notable Quotes #4

Baltimore Orioles manager Buck Showalter, on the decision to put Nolan Reimold on the disabled list to start the 2014 season:

“You probably got to be able to look up to play the outfield …”

http://baltimore.orioles.mlb.com/news/article/bal/the-orioles-will-place-outfielder-nolan-reimond-on-the-disabled-list?ymd=20140326&content_id=70178034&vkey=news_bal

March 17, 2014 – Nationals at Tigers rained out – Lakeland FL

At least it beats snow in Washington 

Section 201, Row M, Seat 5 (grandstand, down the right field line as usual) 

The gloomy central Florida weather forecast for St. Patrick’s Day proved all too accurate. While it wasn’t raining when we got there around noon, and in fact they rolled the tarp off the field, shortly thereafter it started raining hard enough that we left our seats for cover under the stands. It did stop again for a bit, but the rain resumed and increased, and the game was called off around 2:00.

The day was certainly not a complete loss, however. I got to look around the Frank Lloyd Wright buildings at Florida Southern College nearby, and was also able to catch up with the Gowen clan (on Bart’s birthday, no less).

I made the mistake of parking in the main lot, which took forever to get out of. My more perspicacious friends wisely parked in an unofficial lot, which meant that they beat me to Buffalo Wild Wings by over half an hour.

March 16, 2014 – Pirates 5, Phillies 0 – Clearwater FL

Hit batsmen, gulls, and runless wonders 

Weather: 79 degrees, sunny.

Wind: 24 mph, R to L.

T: 2:40.

Att: 10,544 [another sellout at Bright House Field]

Umpires: HP: Tom Hallion. 1B: Phil Cuzzi. 3B: Vic Carapazza.

Section 102, Row 10, Seat 2 (further down the RF line than Thursday) 

Question – why in Clearwater do they drag the infield after the second and fifth innings, rather than the typical third and sixth?

My request for better seventh-inning stretch music was not exactly honored – they did “Y.M.C.A.” instead of “Cotton-Eyed Joe”. They did redeem themselves by putting on Pharrell Williams’ “Happy” at the end of the seventh.

A flock of seagulls (15 or so – the real thing rather than the musical variety) landed in shallow center field just before the seventh inning, and basically hung around for most of the game. Presumably all of the sitting room on the berm was occupied by humans.   ;-)

Given the impotence of the Phils offense, the gulls ranked as one of the highlights of the afternoon. There were also 5 hit batters, leading to a warning to both benches in the top of the seventh. Will be interesting to see whether any ill feelings carry over – the teams still play each other once more in Florida, plus two more exhibition games in Philly right before the start of the regular season.

Meanwhile, the Bucs scored runs of each of the 3 Phils pitchers who will or might make the team (O’Sullivan, Papelbon, Bastardo), with a Neil Walker homer in the seventh finishing off the scoring. Two pitchers from the minor league camp, Mike Nesseth and Kyle Simon, did retire the last 7 Pittsburgh batters of the afternoon.

March 14, 2014 – Pirates 6, Phillies 5 – Bradenton FL

Bucs rally against Rosenberg to down Phils

Weather: 73 degrees, sunny [quite warm out in the sun, pleasant in the shade where I was sitting]

Wind: 13 mph, In from RF.

T: 2:57.

Att: 7,930.

Umpires: HP: Will Little. 1B: John Hirschbeck. 2B: Gabe Morales. 3B: Paul Emmel.

Infield Box 4, Row 15, Seat 13 (about one section to the right of home plate) 

McKechnie Field, which first opened in 1923 (well before I was born), is the oldest stadium used for Spring Training. It’s been renovated a couple of times, so facilities are reasonably good, as are the sight lines. It wasn’t especially clear where to enter the seating area to get to particular sections, though. The dugouts were small enough that some of the staff had to overflow into temporary seats to the home plate side of each dugout.

Programs were $5.00 (a buck more than in Clearwater), and unfortunately the section in the center for keeping score was on the same slick paper as the rest of the program, so it was almost impossible to write on. If I ever get to Bradenton again (unlikely, see below), I’ll have to remember to bring my NASA write-on-anything Space Pen.

Cheapest beer I saw was $6.00 (so also more expensive than Clearwater), and bottled sodas were a major-league $4.50, but the grilled chicken sandwich ($7.00, if I remember correctly) was good.

Despite the absence of any discernable Michael Morse connection, they played “Take on Me” between the top and bottom of the first inning. They get bonus points for putting on “Born to Run” after the fourth, but lose a few for still using “Y.M.C.A.” for the seventh-inning stretch.

Was interested to see that the silent auction was not limited to Pirates items, but included a Jim Bunning jersey and other Phillies memorabilia (as well as that from some other teams).

Unfortunately, the field is located in the middle of Bradenton, meaning that the traffic getting in and out can be a huge mess. Traffic crawled into Bradenton on the way there, which along with construction on U.S. 19 and the toll plaza backup on the Sunshine Skyway made for a total of 75 minutes to get from my hotel in Clearwater to the field. Getting back, and especially escaping from Bradenton, was even worse. Getting out of the parking lot (around 4:18) was not too bad, but things deteriorated quickly from there. It was almost 5:00 until I got in line to pay the toll at the south end of the skyway, and nearly 6:00 until I was back at the hotel. (I did spend a few minutes recovering from an erroneous early exit from I-275 – have to remember that 54^th Avenue South is NOT the same thing as 54^th Avenue North.)

Baseball-wise, the Phils jumped off to a short-lived lead when Tony Gwynn Jr. led off the game by bunting right in front of the plate and reaching when Bucs catcher Tony Sanchez made a bad throw to first. Gwynn then stole second and scored on successive ground balls by Rollins (finally back in the lineup) and Utley. The Pirates quickly tied it in the bottom of the first when Phils starting-rotation candidate Jeff Manship (!) fell behind to Andrew McCutcheon, who deposited the next pitch into the left-field bleachers. Pittsburgh scored a second run in the bottom of the third, but the Phils plated single runs in each of the next three innings on an RBI double by Darin Ruf, an RBI single by Utley, and the first homer of the spring by Ryan Howard, who made everyone especially happy by hitting it to the opposite field.

Meanwhile, Manship and the Phillies bullpen held the Bucs scoreless through the seventh. The stint by Phils southpaw Jake Diekman was particularly impressive. Diekman entered in the sixth after a McCutcheon leadoff single to face two Pirates lefthanded hitters. He struck out Pedro Alvarez and induced Travis Snider to ground into a twin-killing to end the inning.

Things completely unraveled in the bottom of the eighth, however, when B.J. Rosenberg went out for his second inning of work and was able to retire only one of the six batters he faced. By this point the Bucs regulars were out of the lineup, so the damage was done by Robert Andino (single), Brent Morel (single), beloved former Phillie Michael Martinez (single), Mel Rojas Jr. (walk), Junior Sosa (sac fly), and Willy Garcia (two-run single).

In the top of the ninth, Pittsburgh brought in Yao-Hsun Yang, a 31-year-old Taiwanese lefthander whom they signed to a minor-league contract about a month ago. He promptly issued walks to the first two Philly batters (including one pitch that hit the backstop), then hit Gwynn to load the bases, at which point the Pirates mercifully lifted him in favor of Josh Kinney. The Phils did pull within a run when Cesar Hernandez drew a bases-loaded walk, but Wil Nieves followed by grounding into a game-ending double play.