One afternoon in July 1995, pitcher Jack McDowell gave the finger to his own fans at Yankee Stadium. McDowell was a great hurler — the 1993 American League Cy Young Award winner and a three-time All-Star — but he just didn’t have it on this day and got rocked for nine runs and 13 hits in four and 2/3 innings. As he left the mound after getting pulled, Black Jack — nicknamed for his gunslinger stare, the black look he gave hitters — got lustily booed. Feisty as ever, the tall, goateed McDowell raised his pitching arm and gave the crowd a one-finger salute. Then he twirled his hand around for good measure.
JACK ASS shouted the Daily News. THE YANKEE FLIPPER blared the New York Post. Later we learned music had something to do with McDowell’s poor performance. He’d been drinking into the wee hours with two music buddies, Mike Mills and Scott McCaughey of R.E.M.
A musician himself, Black Jack was friends with a number of rockers, including guys in the Smithereens and Pearl Jam singer Eddie Vedder. In fact, two years earlier he’d been partying with Vedder in New Orleans and got knocked out by a bouncer during an altercation. Vedder was arrested for public drunkenness and disturbing the peace. Black Jack walked away with a black eye.
I’ll always associate those 1995 Yankees with music. I had just moved to New York City and it seemed like every other day there was a print, radio, or TV story about the chops of both McDowell and center fielder Bernie Williams, a classically trained guitarist.
By this point, Black Jack had toured with the Smithereens and had a new band, stickfigure, whose first album, Just A Thought, compiled memorable songs in a jangly, alternative-rock vein, written and sung by Black Jack. The band would go on to release three more solid albums, with bass from Mike Mesaros of the Smithereens and drums from Frank Funaro and later Josh Freese. (Funaro left to drum for Cracker; Freese had earlier drummed for Paul Westerberg of the Replacements.) As for Williams, who led the Yanks in hits, runs, and total bases that year, and batted .429 in the playoffs, he wasn’t trying to put out records at the time, but it was clear he kept up his skills. I watched him strum a couple Latin-inflected tunes during a local-news segment and thought, Damn, Bernie can play.
One of the greatest Yankees to ever don pinstripes, owner of four World Series rings, his No. 51 officially retired, Williams went at music hard as the new century began. Playing and composing songs in different styles (jazz, Latin, classical, pop), he released a pair of major-label albums, both of them cracking the U.S. jazz charts top-five. These records included collaborations with Bruce Springsteen, Rubén Blades, banjo wizard Béla Fleck, and other greats. After leaving professional baseball in 2006, Williams studied guitar and composition at a state university, and just a couple of years ago received a bachelor’s degree from the prestigious Manhattan School of Music.
Black Jack and Bernie — two of the most legit music-making sports stars we’ve ever seen. But who’s their competition? Who else has excelled as a professional athlete while also achieving musical excellence, as opposed to mere novelty-act notoriety?
I did some digging. I did some downloading. I listened to champion boxers Manny Pacquiao and Grammy nominee Oscar De La Hoya sing. I listened to tennis legend John McEnroe shred. I listened to Hall of Fame catcher Mike Piazza play drums and contribute “death growls,” as the liner notes put it, to a metal album by Black Label Society. I watched clips from Woodjock, a charity event organized by pitcher Jake Peavy where ballplayers get on a stage during spring training in Arizona and play music before Cactus League fans.
I watched Peavy do a fine cover of the Amos Lee song “Learned A Lot.” I discovered that former All-Pro offensive lineman Kyle Turley moved to Nashville and put out an album of “power country” songs. He shows off his pipes on a tune called “Another Whiskey.” I was impressed with the singing of retired All-Star shortstops Omar Vizquel and Ozzie Smith. Vizquel covers a Goo Goo Dolls song and Smith pulls off a goosebump-inducing (seriously) rendition of a Sam Cooke R&B classic, “Cupid,” on a record featuring warbling ballplayers titled Oh Say Can You Sing?
And then there’s retired pitcher Barry Zito. Last year he became the first former Cy Young Award winner to hit the Billboard charts when his self-released EP No Secrets briefly appeared on the Country and Americana/Folk top-40 lists. Zito’s been singing and playing guitar since 1999 and hopes to do more charting in the future.
But he doesn’t chart on my own totally subjective, no doubt faulty top-5 list!
Along with Bernie and Black Jack, these former ballers bring it, musically.
Mike Reid, a Pro Bowl defensive lineman for the Cincinnati Bengals in the 1970s, went on to forge a big-time music career, writing more than 30 top-ten country and pop hits, including two Grammy-winning songs for Ronnie Milsap, and Bonnie Raitt’s “I Can’t Make You Love Me.” “Walk On Faith,” a single from his own 1990 debut album, climbed to No.1 on the Billboard Hot Country chart. Reid’s the only human in history to be inducted into both the College Football Hall of Fame and Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame.
Wayman Tisdale, the late, great power forward from Oklahoma, a 1984 Olympian, retired in 1997 after a sterling NBA career to focus on music, his first love. A gifted soft-jazz bassist, Tisdale would put out eight albums before his death in 2009, with his 2001 album Face to Face climbing to the top of the Billboard contemporary jazz chart.
Tim Flannery, a San Diego Padres infielder for a decade (his best season at the plate was 1985, when he hit .281), spent seven years as third-base coach for the San Francisco Giants, and has World Series rings from 2010, 2012, and 2014. Okay, so he wasn’t an MLB superstar, but he’s a great singer-songwriter, and a fine guitarist. A bluegrass ace, he’s put out a dozen albums and played with Jackson Browne.
Alexi Lalas, the flame-haired Olympic and pro-soccer player turned commentator also points to music as his first love. In the late nineties, he sang and played guitar in a band, Gypsies, that toured Europe with Hootie and the Blowfish. Since then, the always-vocal Lalas has released three solo albums of tuneful rock ’n’ roll, the last in 2014.
Shaquille O’Neal and his rapping might seem to fit the description of a novelty act, but I vote legit. The Big Aristotle — league MVP in 2000, four-time world champion, 15x All-Star — has a way with words, as we know. And as an MC his low-voiced, mid-tempo flow makes for enjoyable listening. Check out his work with Phife Dawg on “Where Ya At?” Wait, you’re not buying it? Okay, how about this? He’s a better rapper than point guard Tony Parker.
Moreover, you can’t take this away from Shaq: His 1993 debut album, Shaq Diesel, went platinum. Boom.
