Producer, songwriter, manager, publisher, promoter, recording artist — the late Kim Fowley was rock and roll’s ultimate utility man.
Never a star in his own right, Fowley hustled with a single-minded intensity that would have shamed Pete Rose. Always on the lookout for another hit (or at least another stab at notoriety), he put his eccentric stamp on seven decades’ worth of records by an absurdly wide array of artists that included The Beach Boys, KISS, Alice Cooper, Gene Vincent, Frank Zappa, Warren Zevon, Helen Reddy, the Hollywood Argyles, The Rivingtons, Paul Revere & The Raiders, and of course noted Orioles fan Joan Jett’s old band, The Runaways, whom Fowley (in)famously created, managed, and produced.
Fowley died last week of bladder cancer at the age of 75, and his passing was widely noted in the music press. But he deserves a mention in the baseball press, too; not only did he contribute a thoughtful essay about Luke Easter to the Danny Peary-edited 1990 tome Cult Baseball Players: The Greats, the Flakes, the Weird and the Wonderful, but he also co-wrote a memorable pair of baseball songs with fellow rock n’ roll journeyman Skip Battin — The Byrds’ “America’s Great National Pastime” and Battin’s “St. Louis Browns”.
I’m a huge Byrds fan, but I’ll admit that I unfairly overlooked “America’s Great National Pastime” for ages; lacking the 12-string jangle and angelic harmonies of their prime ‘60s work, and recorded at the noticeably flagging tail-end of an otherwise glorious career, the track (sung by Battin, also playing bass for the band at the time) seemed like little more than jokey filler for 1971’s patchy Farther Along album. But listening again with ears re-calibrated by the research I did for my book Big Hair and Plastic Grass: A Funky Ride Through Baseball and America in the Swinging ‘70s, I realized that the song was actually a rather prescient, Tom Lehrer-esque look at how excess and decadence had become an intrinsic part of American existence by the 1970s, and of baseball as well. Certainly, more than a few ballplayers of the era would go from “the worship of speed” to being “refreshed by the great taste of coke” before the decade ended.
While the snarky social commentary of “America’s Great National Pastime” is very much in Fowley’s wheelhouse —his sleazily sagacious autobiography, Lord of Garbage, contains more acerbic social commentary than anyone should probably digest in one sitting — “St. Louis Browns” might be the most unabashedly (and uncharacteristically) reflective item in his entire song catalog. Released on Battin’s self-titled 1972 solo album, the song salutes the enduring legacy of the Baltimore Orioles’ previous incarnation, even if its sweet dobro licks (courtesy of ace Byrds picker Clarence White) are decidedly more accurate than most of the “facts” presented in the lyrics…
No, Bill Veeck didn’t “show up as general manager long about ‘47” (he actually bought the team in 1951); the pinch-hitting midget Eddie Gaedel was decidedly shorter than “four foot eleven”; Roy Sievers actually hit most of his home runs for the Washington Senators; Bob Turley never pitched a no-hitter; and one-armed outfielder Pete Gray played for the Browns in 1945, not 1944. But that’s not really the point — or perhaps it actually is, since the song is ultimately about the nostalgic ache that we feel for the teams and players we loved as children, a love so pure that not even the subsequent application of statistical analysis (or just plain ol’ fact) can conquer it.
For instance, as someone who grew up rooting for the Tigers in the 1970s, there’s a small part of me that will simply never accept that Fernando Arroyo wasn’t one of the great pitchers in Tigers history. Sure, I can look back and see that he went 8-18 with a 4.17 ERA, a 4.35 FIP and only 60 Ks in 209 innings in 1977, his best season — but I can also remember the June 15 shutout he pitched at Tiger Stadium that year against the expansion Blue Jays, when he scattered five hits and walked just a single batter, and I can still recall the breathless excitement with which I recounted his feat to my friends the next day. “Fernando Arroyo is gonna be even better than Mark Fidrych,” I told them; and for that one game, maybe, he actually was. Or maybe he wasn’t; all that really matters is that Arroyo made an indelible mark on my young imagination, and transported me to an ineffable state of joy. Kim Fowley, who spent his life creating, producing and chasing magical three-minute blasts of teenage consciousness, clearly would have understood.
