Baseball / Rock ‘n Roll Comparisons

So quite a while back, I did a post on the biased selection of acts for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame–and that if you aren’t from England, Canada, or the United States, you aren’t getting in no matter what.

I wrote that in the middle of multiple phone conversations with my friend Eric and the discussion of baseball and music–and what we tried to do was create the equivalents from each sport, something like Bill Veeck is the Spinal Tap of baseball…some parody, a ton of tongue in cheek, and brilliant nonetheless. See?

Dick Allen is the Michael Schenker of baseball. Allen was cranky and always in a seeming-fight with media with harsh words to be said for his team’s management. He’s the best hitter not in the Hall of Fame. Allen was an innovator and early-adopter of weight-lifting, vitamins, and steroids (legal at the time). Schenker is the greatest guitarist not in the Rock Hall, controversial for his on/off again feud with his brother Rudi and his brother’s band (his ex-band) The Scorpions, but in both cases, these two individuals don’t have the recognized #s–platinum records or 3000 hits/500 homers.

Nolan Ryan is the Rolling Stones. Ryan had one of the longest careers ever in baseball, but his overall W/L record and his wildness are of note. The Stones have been making music for nearly 60 years. They’ve had a couple of records with spectacular music, but usually there’d be a couple great tracks, a few good, and a couple dogs…a lot like a Ryan season–a couple no-hitters, several 2-3 hitters, and the games where he’d walk 6-8 guys. The other thing to make them comparable–the Rolling Stones start in the final stages of 1950s rock stylings, help lead the British Invasion, get through the Psychedelic 60s, the long songs of the 70s, Disco, and keep rolling through Big Hair, Grunge, and today’s mass-produced generic ‘rock’. Ryan came up in an era where HS pitchers would arrive before they were 20, survived the seasons of no pitch counts and 300+ innings, four-man rotations, and on into the time of five-man rotations and specialized bullpen roles. At age 44 he was pitching more innings/game than todays mid-20s stars do. The game changed between 1966 and 1993, but the Ryan Express rolled right through it all.

Norm Cash is Big Country. Unbelievable start to a career and then nothing which reaches that initial peak, even though Cash was able to play 15 years with the Tigers, never dropping below average. Big Country had a 1983 smash with “In a Big Country” as a single and The Crossing as the album. They followed it up with three really good albums (Steeltown, The Seer, Peace in our Time) and better than average releases through the end of the 1990s though they were no longer widely popular.

Sandy Koufax is Nirvana. Koufax came out of nowhere and became the icon to represent the modern deadball pitching of the mid-1960s before retiring at 30 due to an arthritic elbow. He had six years of dominating pitching (enough for the HOF…that’s a different issue). Nirvana lasted for seven years and only a few albums. Behind Dave Grohl and Kurt Cobain, they represented a new sound–grunge–that changed what was played on the radio and the sound of what is considered alternative rock. Koufax was done in by his elbow. Nirvana was done in by Cobain’s mental health struggles. All that exists for Koufax and Nirvana is what might have been.

Randy Johnson reminds me of Elvis. No one had seen a near-7 foot pitcher before, certainly not a lefty, just as Elvis was a unique phenomenon from the start. Elvis’ career spanned three decades, ending with his death at 42. Johnson pitched until he was 45. Elvis reinvented himself a couple of times going from blues/gospel-influenced musician to movie star to Vegas Elvis. Johnson only reinvented himself once at age 28 after a talk with the Ryan Express. He went from an insanely wild pitcher who relied on a fastball for everything to one who learned the value of knee-buckling breaking pitches against hitters who knew there’d be a 97-mph fastball heading their way often enough. Johnson used his past to his advantage, just as Elvis did.

Greg Maddux is Bob Dylan. Dylan is considered the consummate craftsman and storyteller, but his voice isn’t among the greats, nor is his guitar playing. He’s still going nearly 60 years though. Greg Maddux had a LONG 23-year career. He never had a blazing fastball, never the best breaking pitch, but the man had the skill to change speeds by 1-2mph (and knew he was doing that) as well the ability to adjust a pitch’s location by the width of the black of the plate. Dylan’s the greatest songwriter of 1960-2000. Maddux is the best right-handed pitcher of the post-WW2 era (partially because Clemens jacked himself up on ‘roids/PED)

Other comparisons?

What about Joe Morgan as…Cher??? Morgan’s one of the 2-3 best secondbasemen of all-time. He then went on for may years to be an entertaining listen as a color-man with Jon Miller on ESPN’s Sunday Night Baseball. Cher was a pop sensation, first with Sonny, then completely on her own–and then she reinvents herself into a movie star and succeeds there, too…just not enough to make you think of her first as an actor rather than singer (just like Morgan is remembered as a player first, not an announcer)

If you’ve got more–put them here in the blog comments. I’ll likely add more as I think of them.