Baseball Ghosts and Christmas Presents?

Dave Paisley

Looking for that extra stocking stuffer for a baseball fan on your Christmas list? Afraid your near and dear ones won't buy you any baseball gifts this year? Let me recommend Baseball 's Greatest Hits , a CD that contains 22 items of baseball music comedy and history, ranging from the sublime to the ridiculous.

The best of the musical numbers from baseball history is undoubtedly the classic "Did You See Jackie Robinson Hit That Ball?" by Count Basie and His Orchestra, featuring Taps Miller. Fabulous. Add in Springsteen's rendition of "Take Me Out To the Ballgame," and we have at least a couple of winners in the baseball novelty song category.

There are numerous other novelty songs, ranging from the tolerable to the execrable. One of the more tolerable songs is "Willie, Mickey and the Duke (Talkin' Baseball)" by Terry Cashman, which was featured in the famous Simpsons episode "Homer at the Bat," albeit modified a little for the show.

On the execrable end of the scale, there's a track that is possibly the worst ever recorded in the history of the universe. I am referring to the rendition of "We Are The Champions," by the "Big Blue Wrecking Crew," aka the 1981 Dodgers. The rendition lacks any distinctive characteristics except for a grating, continuous, monotonous growl.

When they sing, "I've done my sentence, but committed no crime/And bad mistakes, I've made a few," they're wrong on a couple of counts. Just making the song was a crime worthy of at least life imprisonment, and bad mistakes? They made more than a few. The combination of the self-congratulatory lyrics and the relentless lack of talent make this the least charming novelty song I've ever heard. In other words, you must buy this CD for this track alone.

Equally execrable in a different way is the very curious novelty song from 1977, "Baseball Card Lover," from Rockin' Ritchie Ray. Rockin' Ritchie has some curious notions about the appropriate use of one's baseball heroes in dreams. Let's just say I don't want "Big Frank Howard" picking up any soap in my dreams. I'm just not going any further than that. Y'all will have to buy the CD yourself to check the rest of this one out.

In between , there are plenty of other novelty songs. Danny Kaye's "D-O-D-G-E-R-S Song" is witty and pleasant enough, while Les Brown and His Orchestra turn out a pleasant early-40's period piece "Joltin' Joe DiMaggio." We also have the Treniers' "Say Hey (The Willie Mays Song)" and the eminently forgettable and trite "I Love Mickey," by Mickey Mantle and Teresa Brewer that could be right out of another Mickey's repertoire. (Mouse, that is.)

There are a couple of excellent historical items included on the CD. Lou Gehrig's farewell speech (only the famous 25 seconds), Bobby Thomson's "shot heard round the world," and Tommy Lasorda's post-game interview from June 4, 1976 when Dave Kingman hit three homers against the Dodgers. There's an awful lot of profanity blanked out, and it's totally hilarious. Lasorda is refreshingly honest about the stupid post-game questions, and I really wish that more managers would take idiot interviewers to task in the same fashion. The CD's worth the money for that alone.

Finally, there's also a collection of baseball humor. The most famous, and probably still the best piece of baseball humor ever, is Abbott and Costello's "Who's on First?" and we get a great rendition here. Throw in Steve Goodman's "A Dying Cub Fan's Last Request," and the quality on the comedy pieces is very high.

The CD ends with a fine historical rendition of Thayer's "Casey at the Bat" by DeWolf Hopper from way back in 1909, the perfect end to a great CD.

 

about the author

Dave Paisley is currently recording backup vocals for the Yankee Grounds Crew version of "YMCA." Anyone wanting to put the crew out of their misery is asked to allow Dave to live. Get identification info at drdjp@strikethree.com.