John Fogerty, "Centerfield"

Ken swings for the fences

Ken’s Pitch:

It was August 26, 1977 and I remember every single thing about it.  To most people crammed into those uncomfortable seats at Fenway Park it was just another game between the Red Sox and Twins, but it was my first game.  Don Aase pitched for the Sox and future Twins Hall of Famer Rod Carew went 2-5 with two doubles.  The Red Sox lost, but the evening was a huge win for me.  What I remember most, and what continues to blow my mind even today after well over 100 trips to ballparks all over the country, were the unmistakable sights, the sounds and the smells of baseball.

We take it for granted now because our kids play sports on perfectly manicured turf fields and almost all high schools have stadium lights and scoreboards with more graphics and functionality than anything pro stadiums had in the 70s.  But back then, there weren’t enough superlatives to describe coming out of the ballpark tunnels to get your first glimpse of that incredible diamond.  Fans stood and gathered at or near their seats, holding their beers and hot dogs, and wondered what magic would happen once the first pitch was thrown.  Players warmed up by playing long-toss in the outfield, and the pop of the catcher’s mitt from the bullpen as the starting pitchers got their arms ready could be heard all over the park.  

The thing is though, it wasn’t just at Major League games where that magic happened.  Late inning heroics, hitting slump heartbreak, and the yips...oh the dreaded yips, happened all over the country in backyards, sand lots, and little league fields.  There was something special about baseball back then, and John Fogerty captured it beautifully with the title track to his album Centerfield.

The song “Centerfield” has become a cliche over the years, but let’s not hold that against the song or Fogerty.  Instead, let’s look at it this way; since 1985, there are exactly 3 songs played in every single major league ballpark- “The Star Spangled Banner”, “Take Me Out To the Ball Game” and “Centerfield”.  In order for it to have become a cliche, it had to become an institution first.  

The entire album is a joy; the opening notes of “The Old Man Down The Road” tell you that this is unmistakably going to have a CCR feel (lawsuit notwithstanding, he wrote the CCR songs too), and Fogerty gives us an old-school Creedence sound throughout the record, plus a rockabilly throwback on “Big Train (from Memphis)”, a lovely story of childhood with “I Saw It On TV” and the aforementioned “Centerfield”.

Now, I could go on and on about Fogerty’s guitar work, which has been vastly underrated since the days of Woodstock.  I could also mention that Fogerty plays all the instruments on the album using overdubbing, but that’s not what I want you to focus on.  Whether you like the album or not, it has become an important piece of Americana and deserves to be in the Newbury St. Collection.  In 2010, the Baseball Hall of Fame honored the song by asking that Fogerty play it at the induction ceremony.  It was the first time a song or a musician was honored as part of the celebration.  

There are a lot of random items in the Baseball Hall of Fame that are related to one particular event.  Ricky Henderson’s gloves that he wore when he broke the stolen base record, the cap Don Larsen wore when he pitched his World Series perfect game, and a half-smoked cigar from Babe Ruth.  Right next to those is a display of John Fogerty’s Centerfield.  And if it’s good enough to sit alongside the busts of Aaron, Koufax, Williams, Mays, and Clemente, it should be good enough for the Newbury St. Collection.

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CJ’s Response:

You’re sitting in an ancient rocking chair on the porch of a lean-to shack at the edge of a swamp. It’s just after midnight and tendrils of mist drift off the murky water, cooling the stifling air. As you reach for your fourth Dixie Blackened Voodoo Lager of the evening, a bullfrog is interrupted mid-croak as something big and ancient breaks the surface of the swamp and then submerges again. There’s music on the radio. The unmistakable voice of John Fogerty pierces the sultry darkness.

In his days with Creedence Clearwater Revival and in his solo career, John Fogerty owned the bayou sound. It came from the South, but it wasn’t Southern Rock. Instead of guns, bibles and the flag, bayou rock was tinged with mysticism, shady figures and dark magic. Even when he’s talking about baseball, Fogerty doesn’t invoke the names of modern-day players. He conjures up the ghosts of diamonds past.

“Centerfield”, the song, is a rightly appreciated classic. Centerfield, the album, doesn’t even come close to getting its due. In fact, as much as Ken loves this record, I think he’s wildly underselling it. “The Old Man Down the Road” is bayou banger that even comes with a high-concept video. “Rock and Roll Girls” sounds like a successful mind meld with Brian Setzer. “Big Train (From Memphis)” is a delta blues honorarium. And “Vanz Kant Danz” feels like CCR’s “Down on the Corner” told from a sinister point-of-view.

But, my two favorites on the album bar none are the back-to-back homeruns of “Mr. Greed” and “Searchlight”. The former is a Fogerty screamer that may as well be the sequel to “Fortunate Son”. The latter is pure bayou—hot darkness, restless spirits and Fogerty’s ersatz Louisiana patois that transforms the pronunciation of the title into “soich-light”. Utter sorcery.

Hey, Fogerty! Grab your mitt. You’re batting second and playing centerfield. Welcome to Newbury St., kid.

• Pitch Successful (I confess. It’s even better than I remembered.)

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Mitch’s Response:

“The Streisand Effect” is our most celebrated example of the law of unintended consequences. Named after the legendary Barbra Streisand, it refers to the act of accidentally drawing more attention to something by trying to make it go away, like Babs did when she attempted to get pictures of her Malibu mansion scrubbed from the internet.

A similar thing happened to Creedence Clearwater Revival frontman John Fogerty, who long refused to play his many classic CCR hits due to a contract dispute with Saul Zaentz, owner of Fantasy Records, over a bad contract that Fogerty himself negotiated. In retaliation, Zaentz licensed Fogerty’s CCR songs everywhere, including those iconic daytime TV infomercials, which ironically resulted in CCR being better remembered than their more celebrated peers. (Side note: I used to adore those CCR, Time-Life and Freedom Rock spots, always playing “name that tune” before the yellow title scrolled up and revealed the answer.)

The shadow of Saul Zaentz looms large over Centerfield, with it’s two worst songs (“Mr. Greed” and “Vanz Can’t Dance”) being directly inspired by Fogerty’s hatred of Zaentz. Unsurprisingly, Zaentz struck back and sued Fogerty for plagiarizing himself on "The Old Man Down the Road” - the best song on the album, even if it does sound a lot like “Run Through the Jungle”. (Fogerty won the case, by the way.)

So while Ken paints an optimistic “Field of Dreams” version of Centerfield, for me it plays more like “Eight Men Out,” with some real ugliness and negativity going on beneath the placid surface. Sure, “Centerfield” is an iconic song, and deservedly so, but like modern baseball, this filler-filled album has trouble keeping me engaged for all 9 innings, especially after the beer gets shut off. I really enjoy “I Heard It On TV”, John’s guitar always sounds great, and he can still write memorable hooks, but the rest of the album wears thin after a few spins.

In my hazy memories of 1985, Centerfield is an album (cassette) that absolutely deserves to be included in the Newbury St. collection. Alas, the unintended consequences of actually listening to it again and again for a week left me a little bummed out and a lot bored.

• Pitch Failed (Just a bit outside)

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Ken’s pitch was not successful and John Fogerty’s Centerfield has been exiled!

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Keep on chooglin’ down on the corner to the comments section and let us know whether John Fogerty’s Centerfield put a spell on you or is just a bad moon rising.

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Please join us next week as CJ drags us to the sunset strip and pitches us on the sleazy delights of Mötley Crüe’s Shout at the Devil.

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The Exile on Newbury St. Spotify playlist features our favorite songs from all the albums we’ve discussed to date. Subscribe today and listen back on the fun we’ve had so far.

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Exile on Newbury St. is a weekly newsletter competition between 4 friends to see who has the best taste in music. Learn more about us and the rules of the game.