Ballad of Tim Wakefield, Redux

Someone made a "video" of my song from last season:

The Ballad of Tim Wakefield ({Non}Cover of the Week 29)

Wake and me rocking Hot Stove Cool Music at Fenway 2005 (photo by Steve Latham)

Buff Tom was in the studio this week working on new songs. Work has also been very busy in my day job. I feared not being able to get to the Cover of the Week this week and, while that is technically true, I did get inspired by another dazzling knuckleball performance by 42-y.o. Red Sox legend, Tim Wakefield last night. So with 2 cups of coffee in me, I whipped this little homage up this morning. Also, finding it's way into the song is this article from the Boston Globe this AM.

When rock and rollers hit a certain (middle) age, many of them feel compelled to write a baseball song. But having one of our own still going at 42, well, that just begs a song. So in the tradition, hopefully, of Zevon and Dylan (and not so much Fogerty), here is mine:

The Ballad of Tim Wakefield



Lyrics:


The Ballad of Tim Wakefield


He don't need no injections in his ass
He makes the ball flutter, it don't need to go fast
Hitters swinging just like a cartoons when it passes
The knuckleball from Timmy Wakefield

I remember all the late innings of June
But there came a night with a big harvest moon
And an October game when a Yankee named Boone
Hit a long one off of Tim Wakefield

But fishing off of Melbourne in the off-season glare
Knowing that middle-aged men everywhere
Are harboring dreams that they could be up there
Pitching just like Timmy Wakefield


When the boys are all flailing as the weather gets warm
He always remain the calm eye of the storm
There are 18 year-old people who might have been born
When a night game was pitched by Tim Wakefield

Batters strike out, pop up, heads bowed low
And into dark dugout tunnels they go
And still confused as the video shows
They were defeated by Timmy Wakefield.

Boston may not be the easiest place
It's not every player they warmly embrace
So just go ask Keith Foulke if he would trade places
In history with Tim Wakefield

You know what they say about saving nine
Well Doug Mirabelli was his stitch in time
The State Police escorted him for no crime
We just needed him to receive Tim Wakefield

Taking the mound or offering his time
for charity's sake and then on down the line
There are plenty of people who will be crying
When they hang up the spikes of Timmy Wakefield

Dylan has written all about Catfish
I may never write like Bobby, Wake like Pedro won't pitch
But true Red Sox fans will always know what they wish
To have nine players just like Timmy Wakefield
Nine players just like Timmy Wakefield
Give me nine players just like Timmy Wakefield

Hot Stove Cool Music

This has to be my 25th year with this event. Honestly, I lost count. It is natural to feel like it is getting old, stale, and for the participants to be less excited as the years go by. And I can only speak for myself, but this is sometimes the ennui-like winter feeling that sets in each December/January. Part of it is the post-holiday exhaustion and typical winter darkness. But it is precisely that inertia and negativity that we must battle in life. And Hot Stove Cool Music proves year upon year to be the unexpected reward for getting my ass out of the house, meet and chat via emails and phone calls with the main organizers, and rehearse the various segments of which I am part. Just when you think it is time to move on, we end up getting down to the Paradise, seeing old friends, playing great music, brushing elbows with young Red Sox stars on their way up (see me and Wild Thing Papelbon, above) and I end up having one of the greatest times, not just of the winter, but of the year. Get your tickets now. Raise money for a great Boston charity event.

Poster by Gary Greenberg