Tag Archive for Met-lovin Big Shots

The World’s Baddest Met Fan: The George Thorogood Interview

George Thorogood approaches baseball the same way he might a classic blues number: He takes it just seriously enough to belie a deep respect for the source but infuses it with enough gusto and humor to express it in his own raucous style.

And he chooses his teams as well as he does his songs. As he explains in the below interview, Thorogood adopted the Mets when they were toddlers and he was a teenager. A fair ballplayer himself, Thorogood would play a few seasons of semi-pro baseball in his home state of Delaware while his music career was still getting off the ground; more than 30 years later, he’s still making records and touring, and he still follows baseball and the Mets with an eye for detail and the passion of a true fan. He led the crowd in a rendition of Take Me Out the Ballgame at a Mets game last August, and his signature original, Bad to the Bone, will live as long as movies feature charismatic villains.

Reached before embarking on a tour that will take him to New York’s Hammerstein Ballroom this summer, Lonesome George, amid his typical array of one-liners and improv, reminds us that true fandom need not be despairing or obsessive: Just a good time.

How are you doing?
Jon, I see your name is spelled J-O-N, like Jon Matlack. Is that on purpose?

He was one of my favorites growing up. I came of age as a fan around 1972-73.
Number 32.

You know your stuff.
He led the league in shutouts in 1973 with 11.

He was excellent in the postseason too, although he took the loss in Game 7.
He would have won [Game 1], but Felix Millan let the ball go through his legs and he lost, 2-1. Tim Tuefel did the same thing in the first inning of Game 1 against Boston in 1986 World Series. I said, here we go again. It was almost the same exact play.

That error would really have loomed large had things not turned out very differently in Game 6.
Do you remember in ‘One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest’ the scene where they’re in group therapy and a guy’s talking about his wife, and Christopher Lloyd pipes in and goes ‘You’ve been talking about your wife for as long as I can remember! BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH!

Well, I was getting on the tour bus one time and my bass player’s giving me a funny look. And he goes are you going to be talking about baseball tonight? And I was like, it’s long trip, I guess so. Why? He says, “Why not talk about the Phillies?” This was a while ago. And I went, “The Phillies? Well, they’ve got some good outfielders…they have some pitching…why do you ask?” And he goes, “Because you’re always talking about your goddamn Mets BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH, goddamnit!!”

I like the scene where Jack Nicholson is pretending to listen to the World Series on the radio.
Yeah, but that’s the Yankees. It doesn’t count.

So you’re a big Met fan. But why? Most kids growing up in Wilmington would be Phillies fans.
I was a Phillies fan, and then came 1964. They had 12 games to go and they lost 10 of them. I said, you know what? If I’m going to root for a team that’s going to lose, I’ll pick the biggest losing team of all time. A team with no expectations. And I wanted them to be in New York, and in the National League, and carry on the tradition of the Giants and the Dodgers. It was the Mets by default.

I liked the Mets, and the tough Cleon Jones. Not just Cleon Jones, see, but The Tough Cleon Jones. Whenever my friends mention him to me it’s The Tough Cleon Jones. So they’re my team, and they’ve been my team since 1965.

When they won the World Series in 1969 it was the greatest thing to happen in baseball. It was David slaying Goliath. It was fantastic. After that, I was content for them to slide back into the second division.

What happened last year was the Mets meeting all of my expectations. These were the Mets I loved. These were the real Mets! When you walk around in the streets who can you identify with? Derek Jeter? He’s so beautiful, he looks like Harry Belafonte. He’s going to the Hall of Fame. The real baseball fan identifies with Wally Backman or Ed Kranepool. The salt-of-the-Earth regular guys. The Dodgers had Gil Hodges. The Mets had Ron Hodges.

So have the Mets become too artificial for you? They’re expected to contend now, they have a high payroll, they’re getting a new stadium…
I thought it was cool to go see the Mets, because if you get behind loser you always get good seats at the park. You can’t get a bad seat when they’re losing. And when they win it’s a bonus. If they win two in a row it’s a big bonus.

But I’m happy for them when they’re winning. That’s exciting. But what broke my heart wasBeltran not swinging at the pitch a few years ago. They were facing Adam Wainwright, the10th pitcher on the team. The bases were loaded. You’re giving Carlos Beltran 100 million bucks and he looks at a pitch down the middle. With the winning run on base in the ninth inning you’re supposed to come through. That broke my heart more than last year.

I like the managers they Mets have had. They’re cool people. Willie Randolph. Classy guy and I think he’s a perfect manager for the team. He wasn’t in the league as Ryne Sandberg or Rogers Hornsby as a second baseman but he was a good solid big-league player that people have respect for.

Some of the fans now are saying it’s time to whack him. A few blogs and the New York Sun have already said so.
If the Mets had won the last 10 games and finished one game behind the Phillies they all would have said he did a great job. One game out after 162 games is a good season.

Whether you agree or disagree, sports in the country are taken way too seriously. They’ve completely lost perspective. Baseball is supposed to be the national pastime, not the national obsession. Don’t people have something better to do than go on a website and write letters to Willie Randolph? How come you’re not out in the backyard having a catch with your son? It’s just baseball. It’s not the price of oil or the war in Iraq. It’s just a game and Willie is just a manager. It’s not his fault the pitchers couldn’t hold a lead. If Florida and Washington are knocking you out, 9-8 you need pitching that wasn’t there.

Plus, they didn’t have Julio Franco. If he was there he’d have kept them together, they wouldn’t have panicked. If you’re that old, still playing in the big leagues, you’re relaxed, baby. There’s no anxiety in Julio Franco’s body.

Is it difficult for a touring musician to follow baseball? You’re always working nights.
It’s all on television now. You don’t have to go too far out of your way. It’s accessible.

But I was wondering, for instance, you could remember where you were during Game 6 of the 1986 World Series.
(sarcastically) No, I don’t recall anything about it. Game 6?! What’s the matter with you?

You know what won game 6? What really won that game?

Bob Stanley’s wild pitch?
No, I’ll tell you what won that game. Mookie Wilson and Gary Carter and Keith Hernandez won that game, by fouling off so many pitches in the early innings, when Clemens was throwing 95 miles an hour. Even though he got them out they fouled off pitch after pitch in their at-bats and by the time the 8th inning came around he had a blister on his finger the size of your big toe. So they had to take him out and they go into that Boston bullpen. That’s what won it for them.

Mookie wasn’t even an original switch hitter. He was right-handed! He wasn’t even supposed to get his bat on the ball against a guy like Clemens. But Clemens was pooped by the time they were done with him. And that’s what won it for them.

Were you on the road at that time?
I was on the road, checked into a hotel. I watched the whole Houston series that way, then I went home, then I went back to the hotel and watched the World Series.

How good a ballplayer were you?
I went from second base, to first base, to the first-base coaching box all in one year. I got signed up in January. By the time July came around they said, “You really can’t play, can you?” I talked a good game. My lifetime batting average talking is better than Stan Musial’s.

Why do we hear so much about you as a baseball player then?
I had a bootleg album out with MCA, and I took a few summers off to play semi-pro when I was still young enough to play the game at a reasonably competitive level. At the time, my career was in its infancy. I had two records at the time but also didn’t know if I’d ever put out any more. It’s something I wanted to do.

People make a big deal out of it. They find out I wasn’t a Major League player and ask me what’s this minor league crap? It was semi-pro. It was the next step from pickup stickball. It was very semi and not pro at all.

What position did you play?
Second base. I won the rookie of the year and afterward asked my coach why he put me there. He said nobody else would play there. I got the job out of default. Our drummer, Jeff Simon, was on the team too, in center field, and he was a better player than I ever was. He was outstanding. I struggled to be mediocre. I was the Ron Hunt of the team.

What uniform number did you wear?
What number? Are you out of your mind, what do you think?

I dunno. How about 33 for Ron Hunt.
Come on, man. I was number 1. For Billy Martin. Bobby Richardson. Mookie Wilson. Richie Ashburn. I can’t believe you ask you had to ask me that!

It was my next guess. But in reality, that league was pretty good for what it was, wasn’t it? Guys home from the summers from college would play. They used wood bats.
For that level I did OK. I made the rookie of the year and made the All-Star team. It wasn’t something I was going to spend the rest of my life doing. Later when I my speed got too slow and my gut got too big, I switched to softball. I played there for two or three years. I eventually said, I should leave baseball to the kids and the big boys.

Have you ever written a song about baseball?
Nah. All the great songs about baseball have already been written.

What’s the best?
You know that one they sing in the seventh inning at Wrigley Field? That’s a good one. I don’t mix one thing with another, that’s just not me. John Fogarty tried to get me to write a blues song about baseball. He said, write a song called Rainout. I said why and he said, “Cuz that would give you the blues, George, if the game was rained out.” I told him, “You write it, I’ll perform it.” He said, “You’re lazy.” I said, “You’re brilliant.”

Do any relief pitchers use ‘Bad to the Bone’ as the music to accompany them to the mound?
Saito, No. 44, who plays for the Dodgers. Los Angeles is playing pretty well right now.

They beat the Mets last night.
The Mets, I think they’re struggling with last year still. You can see it in their faces. It’s not something they can shake off right away… It’s going to take time. They’re going to need a seven-, eight- or nine-game winning streak against to get it going again. Guys like Wright and Reyes, I think you can tell they’ve been thinking about it. It wasn’t like it [the collapse] was something that happened only in the last two days of the season, it went on for about a month. And they had all winter to think about it.

Does it bum you out? Can you find yourself still enjoying it when the Mets have a season like 2003 or 1979?
There are no bad days at the ballpark. Coming home with your cholesterol over 300? That’s something to worry about. Baseball? I like to go to the game, have a hot dog and enjoy it. I even cheer the umps. I like the whole aura of it. Batting practice, and seeing kids catch a foul ball. I feel like you can’t have a bad time at the ballpark. And if your team wins, it’s a bonus.

How often do you get out to the park? Can you use your connections as a rock star to get access?
I’ve had some chances to meet people. Occasionally we’re on the bus and my manager will say, there are some rookies with the Brewers who like your music and would like to meet you and can you go out to the park. But I like watching the game on TV at home or on the bus, where’s there’s not a lot of distractions. The ballpark is great too but I don’t go out of my way to make it happen.

Any Met ballplayers come to mind who you’ve admired over the years?
I liked what Julio Franco stood for. To me he’s about as admirable a guy as there has been in baseball for me in 15 years. And Glavine. I admire him too. He’s very serious and dedicated to his craft. I know he’s a hockey guy but he reminds me of Whitey Ford. I met him every early in his career, maybe 1989.

Glavine isn’t a favorite of many Mets fans today. They weren’t satisfied when he wouldn’t admit to being devastated after the season ended. I think the point he was trying to make was that devastation was for kids with cancer but that kind of subtlety was lost.
That’s what I’ve been saying about people taking baseball too seriously. It’s just a game.

  • Twitter
  • del.icio.us
  • Digg
  • Facebook
  • Technorati
  • Reddit
  • Yahoo Buzz
  • StumbleUpon

From Day 1: The Howie Rose Interview

When Howie Rose was asked to write the foreword for Mets by the Numbers, he had little help from us since the book, by that point, had barely been written. So when he hit it out of the park on the first swing – I don’t think we had to change a single word and it was a perfect fit stylistically – it was at once a relief and then again, not all that surprising. That’s because Howie knows his stuff. We knew that, and if you listen to his broadcasts, you know that too. Howie approaches his assignment as the Mets’ primary radio voice armed with knowledge of the tiny details gleaned, as he explains in the interview below, over a lifetime of fandom aligning nearly perfectly with the history of the team he covers. That he eventually read the book, and hasn’t disavowed his association with it yet, is as gratifying a recommendation as it has received yet.

Can you discuss how you became a Met fan?
I go back to the very beginning. I became a baseball fan in 1961. I was seven years old. My father was a rabid Yankee fan. And my earliest memories of baseball were with my father at Yankee Stadium. When 1962 rolls around, and there’s a new team called the Mets, I really feel that they were created just for me. I’m 8 years old, a brand new baseball fan. My family had moved from the Bronx to Queens, just a quick bus ride away from Shea Stadium. I thought the whole thing had been set up just for me. I literally remember day one. I was too young to stay up and watch the game – they were in St. Louis and an hour behind us and I remember going to sleep knowing that the Mets were playing, but not knowing the score until I got up the next day. I went into my parents’ room, and asked my Dad how’d they do? He said they lost. I remember being disappointed and I was on my way from there.

No problems going against the rooting interests of your dad?
Not really. He got a kick out of it more than anything. My grandparents, and my Dad’s sister, and my cousins, lived very close to Yankee Stadium, literally walking distance, right across the street. So it was not at all uncommon for us to combine a visit there with a trip to Yankee Stadium. I remember visiting in 1964. The Yankees and Orioles were in pennant race that summer, and we went to a double-header there that if not sold out, was close to it. As we’re walking up the ramp with my cousin and my Dad I said, “It looks like a capacity crowd today.” My father looks at me and says, “Capacity crowd?! You must be watching too much of those Mets games.”

That was the truth then. Shea Stadium would sell out a whole lot more than Yankee Stadium would.

What was the point at which you became more conversant with the minutia and the details and the trivia of Met fandom?
You got to remember, being the age I was when the Mets were born, I lived through the trivia. It was more a case of remembering things from first-hand experience or watching it on television, or just a product of having been a fan and remembering what happened in any given game. It’s always come naturally. Most of my friends were also Mets fans.

I just emailed an old friend of mine. I thought of him and his brother the day the Mets made the Santana trade. I said, “We never dreamed up a trade this good except in Windsor Oaks,” which was the garden apartment complex in Bayside, Queens where we grew up. We literally used to sit around and dream up Mets trades.

There is one game in particular I recall. It was 1966, they were playing the Giants and Juan Marichal was pitching. They were losing 5-0 in the seventh inning and Marichal is working on a perfect game. In the bottom of the 6th inning, two out, Wes Westrum is going to letDennis Ribant, the starting pitcher, hit! What are you doing that for? And wouldn’t you know it, Ribant hits a 38-hopper through the middle for a base hit. And the Mets end up winning the game when Ron Swoboda hits a pinch-hit home run in the bottom of the 9th inning. We were so excited, on my way back from the ballpark that day, I said this is the greatest ballgame I’ve ever seen. The greatest I ever will see. And I’m always going to remember this date: August 4, 1966. As a 12-year-old, it was momentous to me. I would always do things like that, and it helped my recall.

That recall obviously helps you as a broadcaster, in what I imagine is your dream job.
It is a dream job in every respect. There got to be a point during my teenage years where I realized I wasn’t going to achieve the dream of being a professional ballplayer. And I had a natural passion and affinity for broadcasting. It came to pass where, when I was at the game and big things were happening, where it was probably natural for most kids to be thinking, “I wish I was on the field,” I would think, “I wonder what Bob, Lindsey and Ralph are saying.” My eyes were on the booth every bit as much as on the field. To have had the chance to work with Bob and with Ralph – I never got the chance to work with Lindsey – is very, very humbling and a source of enormous pride for me. Those guys were every bit the role models to me as Seaver, Koosman and Harelson and the rest of them were.

I read were you’ve said you are partial to what you call the traditional look of the uniform. But what of those who came up in a later generation and to whom the racing stripes are the traditional look, or even the black is a traditional look?
I’m sensitive to that. And there marketing realities of all sports today where there are so many revenue streams available to teams they never realized they’d had before back in the days. So I understand why uniforms change now and then. But I deeply, deeply believe in continuity and tradition and the continuum that is following the traditional franchises in baseball along with uniforms that barely change at all. The Red Sox have tweaked theirs over the years, the Yankees and Dodgers and the Giants are back to traditional roots and I personally find them the best to look at because they connect all the memories.

That’s the thing. Because I go back top day one, the closer they look, stylistically, today to 1962, the more everything ties together across the generations. I know it’s kind of corny, and a small thing in the grand scheme of things, but I think teams in all sports should harp on their history and the fan base and the continuum that following a team from youth to adulthood represents.

You might not have become the ballplayer you aspired to be but if you had, what number would you have liked to have worn?
I wore 8 in Little League because that what they gave me, and I kind of liked the look of it. But if somebody gave me a Mets jersey today and asked me what number I wanted on it I’d tell them 14. Absolutely for Gil Hodges. I’d wear 14 sometimes but if I put my name on the back people would think I was rooting for Pete Rose, No. 14. We’re obviously not related. I remember Gil at the end of his playing career and I’ll always have the utmost respect and admiration for how was able to turn the team around and win the World Series in ‘69 and I think still, even among the players, he’s probably one of the five most influential people in the team’s history. He should be revered and canonized by all Met fans.

What are your thoughts on Citi Field?
Looking at it from the perspective of someone who travels to all the ballparks, virtually every park we go to is modern, state-of-the-art and offers all the amenities you would want in a 21st century ballpark. So, as much as I love Shea, and realize it’s been home for all these years, when we come home after being where we’ve been, it’s kind of a letdown. I have been very envious over the years with these new facilities, so I’m excited that we’re going to have one of our own. I don’t mind that it looks somewhat like Ebbets Field at all. I wish I’d gotten to Ebbets Field in my life, but I was a little too young. Fred Wilpon has a relationship with the Brooklyn Dodgers. He threw batting practice there. That was his passion. And I understand his wanting to incorporate some of that into Citi Field and the Mets themselves.

Most fans know you from your work as a broadcaster with the Mets, but some recall you as well as a terrific talk show host. Do you have some thoughts on why it’s so difficult for listeners to find a host that will engage fans, talk intelligently and understands New York?
Things have become so contentious and filled with attitude that I wonder if there’s a place for something a little more highbrow. I don’t mean that in a condescending way; it just seems like there is so much today that revolved around negativity and attitude.

I’ve been criticized at times for being contentious and argumentative with callers and that’s part of it. But now there’s an inherent anger that they feel the need to transmit. I’m not sure how we get away from that, quite frankly. I think things might get more pronounced before they start to improve. But I think it’s possible to do a show without that. Joe and Evan can do that. They don’t bring that lowest common denominator to it. And Mike and the Mad Dog are great, they’re the Gold standard.

You can have a little Don Rickles in you without being overtly personal toward the one you’re talking with. But some guys have reached far too low in terms of attitude.

I know your schedule probably precludes this, but would you be interested in doing another call-in show?
Knowing what I know now and having been through it, I don’t think I’d be comfortable doing a show while I have an affiliation with a team. I think the best way to do a show is to be unencumbered, unattached, and feel free to criticize and opine with no fear of being accused of having an agenda or having to pull your punch. I went though that. It cost me dearly. And I’m too old for that kind of aggravation. I would much prefer one or the other.

You’re working with a new partner this year. Do you know Wayne Hagin?
I know him through the community of broadcasters. We all tend to chat with one another. Usually before the first game of a series we’ll get together and share some insights and get each other up to snuff. So I’ve known Wayne in that context for a number of years.

I was curious to know whether as part of his audition they put the two of you together and see how you worked first.
We didn’t do that. We’ve both been around long enough to be able to mesh without too much difficulty, although sometimes those things take time. You need to get a sense of the other person’s style and what they’re comfortable with. If I’m doing play by play I want to know when he’s most comfortable jumping in so I can give him the space he needs, and the same with me. I need to know where I can find an opening without stepping on his toes. Our broadcasts more than most are a product of the symbiotic relationship of the partners than a lot of others, where it’s your inning and my inning. That’s not how we do it. When I worked with Gary and Tom, it was more of a conversation. From that standpoint I was very lucky to mesh with Tom right away, and I hope I can mesh with Wayne just as quickly.

How soon will you be able to work together?
The Islanders schedule can really complicate things, but it is what it is. I’ll be able to be down in Port St. Lucie for three days and get in tune with things. I’ll be ready for opening day but I’ll wish I had more innings with Wayne this spring.

One or two games you recall fondly as a broadcaster?
The night they came back after 9/11 turned out to be a much more profound experience than I thought it would be because after the attacks, I was ready to shut down baseball for the rest of the season. I had no stomach for it and felt that where we were nationally had so much pain and hurt and anger and depression, I couldn’t see myself getting into the outskirts of a pennant race, which is where the Mets were at that time. If they canceled the season on Sept. 12 that would have been fine with me.

So when they came back to New York, I wasn’t prepared, and it turned out to be one of the most profound, emotional, nights of my life. I was doing TV that night. When Piazza hit the home run in the bottom of the 8th inning, we showed a shot on camera of a couple of uniformed firemen, and they are smiling and jumping up and down and celebrating the home run in the picnic area. And I thought to myself, I have no idea what firehouse these guys are from but in all likelihood these two men in the last 10 days lost comrades, friends and perhaps even family, and amid all that devastation, and with everything we’d been through as a nation, and everything that those two guys had been though, that we can take respite and solace in a home run in a baseball game, that however short it lasts, put that misery out of their minds for a split second and get a little pleasure. It reinforced for me the power of sports and especially baseball in this country. And that’s when I knew it was the right thing to do to come back and play. That’s at the top of the list.

When they clinched the division in ‘06, even though it was a foregone conclusion, to be behind the mic at that moment brought me right back to Sept. 24 of 1969 when they clinched the division for the first time, and I actually welled up a little bit. My mind took me back to being at Shea as a fan when they clinched in ’69 and I got a little emotional. That’s the connection, the continuum I always talk about. I was able to enjoy that moment in ‘06 in conjunction with what I’d experienced as a fan in ‘69, and to have that all tied together was a great moment for me.

I imagine it was pretty difficult then to call it last year, though probably a good test of your journalistic chops also.
It’s easy to get caught up emotionally when the team is doing well but you still have a responsibility to maintain perspective and balance between the reporting you’re supposed to do and the emotional pendulum no matter how it’s swinging. I think, and I heard from people in and out of the organization, that Tom and I had the right balance last year.

It was incredible to watch it unfold because you kept thinking they were just a game away from turning it back around. Only, it just never happened. Until the top of the first inning of the last game of the year, I never sat back and said, they might not make it. Even with all of that, the Phillies could still have lost and there would have been a playoff game. But the Phillies didn’t cooperate. Full marks to them: They earned it, they took it. It was there for them and they grabbed it. They deserve all the credit.

  • Twitter
  • del.icio.us
  • Digg
  • Facebook
  • Technorati
  • Reddit
  • Yahoo Buzz
  • StumbleUpon