Kuzul

Denny McLain: Live in Las Vegas

That’s an album, no lie, you want to be sure to rush out and not buy. Resist!

I know you’re wondering why a millionaire ex-ballplayer (okay, a coked up ex-millionaire ballplayer) would try to make like a lounge singer in Vegas? Okay, a coked up ex-millionaire ballplayer convicted of extortion and racketeering, but still…you don’t want his album. Of all his crimes against humanity, it’s hard to say which is worse—the racketeering or this album.

We discovered this in our search for the weirdest and wackiest baseball songs. And there are plenty, folks. The Jose Canseco song by an unknown author, for example:

“Jose Canseco, Jose Canseco

Known from here to Waco

As a major-league flake-o

Who shot it up his cake-hole”

Even the big boys got in on the baseball lyric biz, including favorite Bob Dylan and his homage to Catfish Hunter:   

“Used to work on Mr. Finley’s farm…but the old man wouldn’t pay

So he packed his glove and took his arm…an’ one day he just ran away    

Catfish, million-dollar-man…Nobody can throw the ball like Catfish can”

One of our favorite southern comedians—Tim Wilson—had a similar homage to a pitcher called “The Ballad of John Rocker”:

“Mr. John Rocker, better clean out that locker

Or go out and throw about 42 perfect games

Saving you a spot next to Marge Schott in the dip****s Hall-of-Fame

John Rocker, Detective Fuhrman called, he knows just how you feel

And I bet that congressman, David Dukes, would help you with your appeal”

Kinky Friedman had a song about Marilyn and Joe. Turned out not to be one of Kink’s funnier bits. More of a love song, really. It’s called “Marilyn and Joe”:

“There is a place where you can go… Where Marilyn still dances with DiMaggio

And Juliet with Romeo”

But that didn’t keep us from looking through thousands of baseball songs. There’s a song titled “Nolan Ryan’s Fastball,” one of eight songs on Ryan, but none of them were that funny.

There are two songs out on Ichiro Suzuki. One is a hip-hop song—”Ichiro”—with unprintable lyrics by Tony Rome that is more about trying to convince his gal to be more like Ichiro and give her all for “the team.” Another is called “RBI Samurai: The Ichiro Song”:    

“He came from the land of the rising sun…he’s number 51

Can’t believe how fast the guy can run

Go, go Ichiro…You’re my, my hero…Ichiro

You’re the RBI Samurai…Go, go, Ichiro”