Baseball Season is Over, Long Live Baseball Musicians
Is Hall of Fame baseball analyst Peter Gammons a Nyquil junky? If we are to use lyrics as autobiography then yes. My favorite contemporary baseball commentator wrote and recorded a blues track called Nyquil Blues.? He also wrote a song about drinking Tanqueray.? Gammons is 65 years old and a devoted Midnight Oil and Pearl Jam fan and last year recorded a bluesy album with the help of some local Boston musicians entitled , Never Slow Down, Never Grow Old.? Hard as it is to imagine? the CD? isn’t terrible and is a perfectly decent effort by a true music fan.? He plays lead and rhythm guitar well, and? does the majority of the vocal work including vocals on a cover of The Clash’s Death or Glory which allows Gammons to put a little snarl in his voice which is hidden even when he is? dressing down New York Yankee management.?

Speaking of the Yankees, one of the only Yankees I have not-hated has released his own CD entitled The Journey Within.? On it Williams plays guitar on tracks you may hear during your next visit to Linens and Things.? The sound is hokey and after extended listening terribly unpleasent.? The cover is awful as well and looks like it taken and brushed up at one of those photo booths in the mall which allow you to stylize your photo with one of two options, fuzzy or colorful fuzzy.? Williams is not a bad guitarist, he knows how to play the guitar effectively, but in the end the effect is nauseating.? Although, I would have liked to hear the rumored jam sessions in the Yankee clubhouse with Paul O’Neill on drums.?
? If you are renowned as a professional athelete? one of the most embarrising ways to present yourself to the public as a musician is to release a CD with a title that encorporates the sport that you are known for.? ? Hence naming your album Covering the Bases,? is a bad idea, as is singing in a faux barritone voice just to get that sound when covering grunge tunes. Cincinnati Reds pitcher Bronson Arroyo does an excellent job of covering famous grunge songs if the intent is to be as unoriginal as possible.? Arroyo certainly covers the bases and does not stray in the least from the original recordings.? ? In the end, despite his unoriginality, I can get behind a guy that just wants to have fun in the studio and I am sure that Arroyo had a lot of fun making this album.?
So where are my future baseball rockers?? Ruben Sierra has a couple albums but I can’t find an? copies or? a digital download.? I know that Randy Johnson and Omar Vizquel play drums.? Vizquel was able to find time to write an autobiography so where is my album?? I know Stan Musial has an album of harmonica tunes, but that entails some serious crate digging.? Ken Griffey Jr. and Coco Crisp have layed lyrics on some rap tracks and Sean Casey is supposed to be able to carry a country tune, but I want more.? Come on guys,? you have all winter.



