The Irish Voice

Flannery's Home Run

Baseball and popular music have always made iffy bedfellows.  The high point was probably the "where have you gone Joe DiMaggio" line from Simon and Garfunkel's "Mrs. Robinson."  There were also some nifty jump tunes from the thirties and forties: "Jackie Robinson", "Joltin' Joe DiMaggio," "Play Ball, You All."
But contrast those gems with baseballs's more recent musical legacy.  There was the whiny "put me in coach" of John Fogerty's "Centerfield."  And don't' forget "Talkin' Baseball," Terry Cashman's snoozy cookie-cutter ditty of over a decade ago.  Willie, Mickey, and The Duke was passable enough, but a version of every major league team?  Sorry, LeGrand Orange, Boccabella and The Rock never quite cut it . . .
It would be easy to view Tim Flannery's efforts with similar suspicion.  A former infielder and now third base coach with the San Diego Padres, Flannery always brought his guitar with him on the road, writing songs in hotel rooms and on airplane, musing upon his experiences both in and outside of baseball.  C'mon, a baseball guy playing serious music?
The baseball mentality is a funny thing," says Flannery via telephone from his hotel room in Chicago, where the Padres are paying the Chicago Cubs that night.  "You can play golf all day.  You can play cards all day, you can drink all night, but if you play guitar and write songs, something's wrong with you," he laughs.
There's nothing wrong with Tim Flannery, he's a fine singer, writer, and musician.   That's evidenced on Pieces of the Past, Flannery's third album.  It's also his most personal musical journey.
His father, Ragon, a retired minister, is suffering from Alzheimer's disease, and the album is dedicated to him.  In fact, the album's title refers to an episode that triggered the elder Flannery's memory, despite the disease.  "We were playing on the road in Cincinnati," Flannery recalls.  "We had a day off, so I took my family with me deep in the mountains of Kentucky, where my father's from.  I picked up this piece of coal from there and brought it back to him."
The lump of coal stirred the elder Flannery.  "He held this coal, and started telling these incredible stories of his youth, about horseback riding on Sturgeon Creek," Flannery recalls.  "I mean, he can't even put words together, but he was able to connect, through this piece of coal.  That was the inspiration for Pieces of the Past.
Flannery's plight has resonated with other Alzheimer's families, a recent profile of the coach and his father on CNN spurred much correspondence and empathy.  "I've had the most beautiful letters and e-mails from caregivers, people going through the same situation," he says.  "I even got an e-mail from the Ukraine."
According to Flannery, Pieces of the Past nearly didn't happen.  He was close to giving up on music, he had just learned of his father's illness, he was playing uninspired cover tunes with a fragmenting band, and was feeling utterly fatigued himself.   A chance meeting with singer/songwriter Matt Manning, who wrote the Irish radio hit "Waltzin' an Angel," changed his direction.  "I asked Matt to listen to my tape.  I didn't know where these songs were coming from, but I thought there was a Celtic influence there."
Manning listened, and offered to produce Flannery.  Manning added whistles, fiddles, and uilleann pipes to Flannery's bare-bone songs.  It was the revitalization Flannery needed.  "Yes, this is what I want to do," says Flannery of his reaction to Manning's musical input.  "I admire groups like The Chieftains, Altan, I've always been drawn to this music."
The integration of Celtic elements into his music has prodded Flannery to take one step further.  After this season, he's traveling to Ireland for the first time.   He'll be paying some gigs, Pieces of the Past was recently picked up by an Irish record label, Lunar Records. Where it is in heavy circulation on Irish Radio
Flannery's sting voice belies his wiry infielder's frame, his warm, broad tone evokes Gordon Lightfoot, and he plays deft fingerstyle guitar.  He has also enlisted some major league musical help.  Jackson Browne and Bruce Hornsby contribute tracks, and Mick Hanly, best known as the writer of the "past the Point of Rescue", wrote "Coming Home" for the album.  And in a nice turn, Flannery doesn't keep any profits from album sales, he instead uses the money to send underprivileged kids to Padres games.
But Flannery doesn't rely on the star cameos,  his talents shine on their own merits.   "Million Miles Away" is a haunting, mournful tale of life on the baseball road.  "Road to Recovery", which features some zydeco accordion from Hornsby, is catchy.  And "Kentucky Hills" is Flannery's poignant tribute to this grandmother Audrey, who played banjo on the family porch.  "Music is something that comes from generations before us," Flannery says.  "I really believe that it's in our DNA, it's a powerful, powerful thing."
This past spring training Flannery traded licks and songs with Garth Brooks, who spent the month of March working out with the Padres.  At first, Flannery was suspicious of the country superstar's motives, and felt the media attention would disrupt the Padres' camp.   "I was the first guy to say what are we doing, whey is this guy coming here?" he states.
Slowly, Flannery warmed to Brooks, even giving him a CD.  "He worked his butt off," says Flannery.  "He knew he couldn't play major league baseball, but that didn't take away his passion.  I understood what he was doing.  I know I'll probably never play Carnegie Hall but that doesn't take away from how I approach music."
After one grueling session in which Flannery hit Brooks over two hundred ground balls to field, Brooks called Flannery aside.  "He said, `You made me cry,'" Flannery, who didn't realize at the time that Brooks was talking about the album, and not the ground ball workout.  "I slapped him on the back and said, `Hang with em!'"
The two even played a little gig near the end of spring training for Padres players, families, and staff.  "Once you get him away from the headset, the smoke, the walls of sound, he sings like something you've never heard," Flannery says.   "The only guy with more hits than Garth Brooks is Tony Gwynn."
So any chance Tim Flannery will chuck baseball, and take up music full time?  "I like to say that I'm going to get a tie-dyed bus once I get my baseball pension, and ride around and play for free," Flannery laughs.  But he realizes that his music is still just a serious avocation, not a full-time career.
Many baseball people still view his musical sideline askance.  Flannery remembers an incident from his rookie season, in which he was caught where he wasn't supposed to be.   "Here I was, a rookie, trying to make the club, up on stage [in the hotel bar] playing with the band  and in walks the whole front office.  Roger Craig, my first manager, called me into his office.  The first thing he said to me was `Keep your guitar out of the cocktail lounge.'
"I had one general manager tell me that the music is holding me back from being interviewed as a manager," continues Flannery, disdainfully.  "This is part of my life, it always has been, and it's done nothing but help my baseball.  I don't have to separate the two."  But his Padres mates have been supportive, many attend Flannery's offseason gigs, and the Padres even provide a link to Flannery's music on the team's official website. 
So Tim Flannery will keep doing what he's doing, patrolling the third base coaching box for the Padres in the spring and summer; recording and gigging in the autumn and winter.   He's also realistic about his father's decline.  "It's a continuous thing we're dealing with," says Flannery.  "The wound never heals."
That said, making Pieces of the Past has buoyed Tim Flannery, and helped him cope with his father's illness.  "It's been a journey.  This whole process has shown me that there's a master plan," says Flannery.  "To be able to honor him in music is just a blessing."

*Ragon Flannery passed away July 6th 1999