|
11/16/2007 1:02 PM ET
Music and baseball in rhythm
Giants 3B coach an accomplished country musician
By Doug Miller / MLB.com
|
|
Tim Flannery is all business on the baseball diamond but enjoys a passion for music off of it. (Tony Avelar / AP)
| MLB Headlines |  |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
ADVERTISEMENT
|
Tim Flannery's finally got this baseball-and-music thing figured out pretty well.
Now the San Francisco Giants third base coach, Flannery played for the San Diego Padres from 1979-1989, earning a reputation as a scrappy infielder who made the most of his ability and would do anything to get his team a win. Meanwhile, off the field, Flannery, was a burgeoning singer, guitarist and songwriter waiting for a chance to break through.
But as he explains, it's sometimes tough to convince old-school baseball people that there's any value in holding something wooden in your hands other than a bat.
"People cringe when you say you're an athlete and a songwriter," Flannery says. "I got fired from a baseball job in 2002, and they cited my music as one of the reasons. So I don't play shows during the season. You don't have time to do it right, anyway."
Flannery doesn't have to worry about the repercussions of his hobby this time around, though.
"It's different," Flannery says. "(Giants General Manager Brian) Sabean calls me up at 2 a.m. and says, 'If you don't get down here with your guitar, you're fired.' He loves the music, and he knows how weird I am about it and how I try to hide it, and he doesn't want me to hide it.
"But he's Irish. He understands."
Being of Irish descent is hugely important to Flannery and his music. His family, which immigrated from Cork, Ireland, in the mid-1700s, settled in the Appalachian Mountains of Kentucky, and everyone around the house played music.
"I remember my grandmother putting us to bed, then sitting out on the porch and playing banjo," Flannery says. "When we get together, we play bluegrass music and we sing together. It's blood harmonies, something that binds our family together."
Flannery's family influence hit a particularly high note on his album Pieces of the Past, which was dedicated to his late father, Ragon, a retired minister who was in the throes of Alzheimer's disease.
The title of the album, in fact, stems from a time when Flannery had a day off during the baseball season and ventured into the mountains of Kentucky with his family, near where his father grew up. He pulled a piece of coal from the earth and brought it to his father, and the relic of the family's past inspired his father to tell stories of his childhood.
Another track on the album, "Immigrant Eyes" so deftly and emotionally details the plight of his ancestors on their way from Ireland to the United States that country star Garth Brooks, who was with the Padres on a special Spring Training invitation, was moved to tears by the song.
"Tim is like a two-sport star with his music and baseball," Brooks told The Associated Press. "He can do it very well."
Flannery says he's been doing it since he was a junior in high school, usually with a band, and now, in clubs in California and beyond in the offseason, he takes some serious players with him, including Doug Pettibone, who has played with Lucinda Williams, plus Dennis Caplinger, producer Jeff Berkley, Calman Hart, Dani Carroll, Barbara Nesbitt and whatever famous friends of his decide to show up.
Then again, he doesn't really need a band.
 courtesy Tim Flannery
"I've always been able to do it with one guitar if I have to," Flannery says. "I play shows when I want to play them, and I love to play music. Most of the time I'm playing because it makes me feel good, and sometimes it makes other people feel good."
That attitude has led to eight critically acclaimed albums in the last 12 years and a long list of music-industry heavyweight friends and colleagues who contribute to his polished mixture of country, rock, bluegrass and folk, including luminaries such as Bruce Hornsby and Jackson Browne.
During the baseball season, Flannery takes an acoustic guitar ("Always acoustic," he says, "because when it all blows up, I'll still be able to play,") with him wherever he goes, practices his chops in hotel rooms, composes songs, tries out alternate tunings, and, of course, tries to relax a little bit.
"I love it during the season because I don't have to really rehearse," he says. "You're not worried about set lists. You're just writing and playing and experimenting. Most of my writing comes out of this time of the year."
Flannery's latest project is his new CD, The Wayward Wind, a paean to the "cosmic California" mixture of country and rock that was pioneered by the late Gram Parsons and inspired many successful groups, including the Eagles.
Flannery urges listeners to go to his Web site, timflannery.com, and burn themselves a CD of free downloads of selections from all of his albums, some of which are now out of print.
"I didn't get into music or baseball to make a dollar," Flannery says. "I do it because I love it."
He's not the only one.
Newspapers and magazines have raved about his albums, and he he says he's always finding people who will sit down, listen to one song, and want to hear more. This happened one night in Pittsburgh recently.
"I sometimes go into the stairwells in the hotels to play because the acoustics are good there," he says. "I went there one night and a couple people who were climbing the stairs up to their rooms ended up sitting down and listening...I sold four or five records that night."
"My music will always be there for me," Flannery adds. "It's a great friend to me. I pray through my songs, I weep through my songs and I celebrate through them.
"And some just get me through a night."
Doug Miller is Senior Writer for MLB.com/Entertainment. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs.
| 
News
print this page
