"This is a difficult business to break into and I don't want to be
thought of as some ballplayer who's dabbling in music,” 1993 A.L. Cy Young
Award winner Jack McDowell recently told ESPN’s
Peter Gammons. “Music is
now my entire life. I once was a pitcher who played music, now I'm a musician
who used to play baseball."
Botched elbow surgery (a “minor” arthroscopic operation that left one of the
muscles in his throwing arm permanently paralyzed) in 1997 brought McDowell’s
baseball career to a premature end two years later at age 33. But even while he
was playing, McDowell was laying the groundwork for the music career he hoped
to begin when his playing days ended. A big
Beatles and
Who fan
as a kid, thanks to his older brothers, he was influenced in his teens by the
likes of
R.E.M., the
Replacements and the
Smiths. In the
early ’90s, McDowell, who sings, writes and plays guitar, put together his
first band,
V.I.E.W. In winter 1991-92, they were asked to open a winter
tour for New Jersey rockers
The Smithereens, mostly on the
recommendation of that band’s bassist and baseball fan extraordinaire Mike
Mesaros and guitar-playing soundman
Mike Hamilton. V.I.E.W. would
eventually break up after recording one EP. For McDowell’s next project—his
first full-length studio album—he chose the name Stickfigure (an old high
school nickname spawned by his 6’5,” 185 pound frame). Among the players on
that album, 1995’s
Just a Thought, were Mesaros, Hamilton and ex-
Del
Lords drummer
Frank Funaro. This became the original touring line-up
of Stickfigure and a second album,
Feedbag, followed in 1997.
Of course, McDowell’s most famous rock’n’roll involvement during his playing
days probably had less to do with his own band than with an evening out in New
Orleans with friend
Eddie Vedder, whom he’d known since before Vedder
became a superstar as
Pearl Jam’s singer. Jack ended up making headlines
when he ended up on the short end of a fight with a club bouncer who was
hassling Eddie.
With the end of his playing career, music became McDowell’s full time
occupation. He began writing intensely for a new album and having written over
30 songs began recording what would become
Ape of The Kings, with super
drummer
Josh Freese (
The Vandals,
Paul Westerberg and a
gazillion others) replacing Funaro, who with Jack’s blessing had left to join
Cracker
full time. Released this year on What Are Records?, the album should appeal to
anyone whose tastes run to the kind of taut, tuneful songwriting that characterize
Jack’s abovementioned influences and, of course, The Smithereens, too.
Having known Mike Mesaros since the earliest days of The Smithereens and had
many long discussions on both baseball and rock’roll with him, I figured
Zisk
would be the perfect place for a lengthy interview with Jack and Mike. We spoke
prior to Stickfigure’s show at the L.A. club The Mint this May. I’m sure
Jack—who’s admitted that the toughest thing for him has been convincing people
that he’s not just an ex-ballplayer trading on his notoriety--will be pleased
to know that a friend of mine who attended the show’s first comment on his
performance was: “Hey, this guy’s actually a legitimate musician.”
DS: Jack, what music did you grow up listening to?
JM: I had two brothers and an older sister that were 7, 8, and 10
years older than me, so pretty much what they were listening to was my first
taste of the music world and I got lucky. My oldest brother was a huge Beatles
fan. My brothers used to sit me on the bed, play Beatles records for me and
have me tell them who was singing. You know, ask me “Which one of the them’s
singing?” and I’d have to figure out who it was. If I was wrong they’d smack me
around. That was one of their fun games. So I kind of grew up on the Beatles
and moved on from there.
DS: What was more memorable for each of you, your first big-league
ball game or your first rock concert.
JM: The first rock concert came when I was a teenager, so the
big-league ball game definitely because you’re a kid and just everything looks so
surreal and the uniforms are so white and everything is so clean and nice out
on the field. The field’s perfect compared to the little league fields you’re
playing on, so that was definitely more memorable.
DS: What was the first ball game you ever saw.
JM: It was probably a Dodgers game. I’m trying to think when exactly was my
first game. It must have been early grade school.
DS: And what about first rock concert, do you remember when that was?
JM: I think the first rock concert I may have gone to was
Genesis
in the early ’80s. A couple of high school friends had tickets and I didn’t
really go to shows. I didn’t get over to clubs, obviously. Being underage, I
couldn’t go into clubs over in Hollywood. Oh, you know what, Genesis wasn’t
actually my first show. My brothers took me to see
Springsteen when they
were in high school. He was doing the crazy 3 ½ hour shows way back when. I did
get to see that. That was probably the first one I went to see. It was either
at the Forum or at the Sports Arena, I think it was the Sports Arena.
DS: How about you, Mike? Which do you remember best, first concert or
ball game?
MM: I remember both. The first rock show I saw was
Canned Heat
and the
Grass Roots at the Steel Pier in Atlantic City, where my parents
had once gone to see
Abbot and Costello and
Bing Crosby and
Frank
Sinatra, so that was really cool. I remember my first ball game was with my
little league team and it was at Yankee Stadium, the old Yankee Stadium, and it
was some time in the ’60s and I remember
Mel Stottlemyre was pitching
that day and
Mickey Mantle was in the line-up. It was a great way to
start, and just like Jack says, there’s a thing about walking in and seeing
that green, that grass, and the uniforms, how beautiful they looked. I think to
this day, one of my favorite things about going to a ballgame is just looking
out and seeing that grass for the first time, especially at a place like Fenway
Park or Wrigley Field.
JM: Did you guys wear uniforms to the game.
MM: Yeah.
JM: Absolutely.
MM: And I remember Billy Cantor. I was so grossed out the way he was
eating a hotdog with mustard all down his face. Ugh.
JM: Soiling your little league uniform.
DS: I grew up about two miles from Yankee Stadium and used to pass it
all the time and you just wanted to be there seeing a game every time you
passed.
MM: It had to be torture if there was a game going on and you weren’t
going.
DS: So staying on this topic, how about your first time on the mound
versus your first time on stage.
JM: There’s no comparison, because certainly the first time you take
the stage you’re not throwing in front of a TV audience and 20,000 or 30,000
people, so pitching the first big-league game was nuts. I was talking about it
the other day with somebody, reflecting way back when.
Carlton Fisk was
my catcher. I’m looking around and seeing all these guys I’ve been watching on
TV and I’m two months out of college. It’s like they put you in the middle of a
video game or something. It’s just a completely surreal experience. Talk about
tunnel vision; I had so much tunnel vision that after about the second or third
inning, I was walking off the field and walked into one of the railings of the
dugout. I didn’t want to look at anything; I was so locked into my own head I
didn’t know what was going on.
DS: Was the College World Series good preparation for that?
JM: Yes and no, I mean we played in front of a couple of thousand
people in college in different places. Stanford has a nice facility and you got
to play for a lot of people in the regionals, but nothing like in the big
leagues. I mean you walk into a stadium compared to a ballpark. It’s completely
different.
DS: And your first show on stage fronting a band?
JM: I think my first show was… I did acoustic shows with some guy in
Chicago in a bar. That was the first time I was ever out playing my music in
front of people. The first show the band ever did was at a park, probably 100
feet from my house in Chicago at the time. It was kind of crazy; definitely
different.
DS: Was the press on to the thing?
JM: No. It was pretty low key. I mean, people knew I was doing it,
but it wasn’t like it was a big, crazy thing.
DS: Did you have one highlight as a major leaguer that stands out
above the rest?
JM: I think the highlights I had were the clinch days going toward
the playoffs. I was never lucky enough to actually win a playoff series in the
handful of years I got to go, so I think the highlight was when you finally
reached that first step. You set out a goal and you get to reach it, so I think
those days are definitely the highlights, sprinkled along with the things I got
to enjoy, like a couple of milestones Carlton Fisk had when I was with the
White Sox and we got to celebrate with him. That was great, too.
DS: Having Carlton Fisk catch your first major league game, what did
that mean to you?
JM: Oh, it was great. The one story I tell about Pudge all the time
is I came to the majors with a good fastball and a mediocre split-finger
fastball. I mean, I was still developing that pitch, so I mean I was a 1½-pitch
pitcher at the time. So he got really good at using my fastball. I’ve related
this a bunch, but there were times when I would go into the windup and he would
move to set up his target and he’d be literally behind people, like “OK, if
you’re missing, throw it through this guy.” That’s the way I learned to pitch
early on with him.
DS: Were you kind of a Drysdale disciple attitude-wise?
JM: Yeah. I was pretty aggressive on the mound and I went after
people, you know, but I never liked to waste pitches. I wasn’t trying to scare
anybody by throwing up and in, but I would throw inside to try and get people
out. You know, you miss by 6 inches and you’re right on them. You make the
pitch you want to and they’re not going to hit the pitch. That’s the thing; if
you’re trying to throw strikes on the inside part and you miss, it looks like
you’re trying to dust somebody off the plate. I never liked to waste pitches. I
liked to get to it, get after them, and get them out as quick as I could.
DS: Is there a constant battle with the batter moving in on you and
the pitcher trying to keep him off the plate?
JM: There is, especially nowadays. The thing is, they stopped calling
the inside strike for a long time, so batters just got up on top of the plate.
Basically, the outside corner of the plate was right down the middle where
these guys were standing and you’d throw a perfect pitch inside and they’d jump
off the plate and everybody would think you’re throwing at them. Meanwhile, the
pitch is right there. It’s a strike if you go back and look at it. They weren’t
calling that for a while so you had to be more aggressive in there. The trick
for me was getting them into a situation to exploit that and I used to use it
in the opposite way from most pitchers. When I’d get behind in a count, I’d
challenge people inside and they’d see fastball and think, “This is something I
can handle.” Early on in my career, when I had a good enough fastball, I’d be
able to get in on them. That’s how I used that.
DS: Later in your career, when the fastball was not as good, did you
develop other mechanisms?
JM: You know I never got a chance to get to that point. I kind of
just went boom [McDowell’s career ended at 33 after a botched elbow surgery]
and I was done so I never got to it. But I was stubborn; it would have taken me
a while. I still would get to a situation where I’d go, “I’m going to jam this
guy inside here.” I would try to throw my 84-mile-an-hour fastball by somebody
and he’d remind you that’s not a good idea.
DS: How did you and Jack meet, Mike?
MM: I saw Jack on
Roy Firestone’s show in 1990 and he was on
with, I think,
Lee Plemmel who was a member of Jack’s band V.I.E.W. I
remember he played a song called “Prodigal,” and it made quite good musical
sense to me. I can tell in one song if a person is coming from the same musical
place as I am. Then through a mutual friend we met and those guys came out on
the road with the Smithereens for a good month on tour in ’91 or ’92.
DS: Was that your first bona fide tour, Jack?
JM: Oh, yeah. Absolutely. I tell these guys now, but I didn’t tell
them at the time, that we had only done a handful of V.I.E.W. shows with that
band together and they called us out to do the Smithereens tour with all these
packed crowds and I remember showing up, the first gig was in Louisville, and
having the auditorium just jam packed with kids. It was nuts and the first
thing they see is us, because we’re the opening band, and we go out there, and
I remember finishing the first song and I know the whole crew of the Smithereens
were checking us out, because they didn’t know what we were all about. Nobody
had heard us or anything. So we had the added pressure of the veterans looking
on plus all the kids. At the end of the song, the kids were going nuts and I
thought, “Oh we can do this, this is cool.” I probably learned as much during
that three weeks on the road as I have since.
MM: There was no hazing going on, though. We didn’t give them the
shave and all that.
JM: That’s right. They were nice to us.
DS: So, Mike, were you the one responsible for having V.I.E.W. on the
road with the Smithereens?
MM: Yeah. I knew it would be musically compatible, which it was. A
good guitar-oriented rock and roll band. I knew it would be a hell of a lot of
fun, which is one of your main concerns. A gig is only an hour, or 90 minutes,
then you’ve got the rest of that time out on the road, so it’s good to have
good things going on then so that everything’s going to be fun and going to
work.
DS: So Jack, were you a Smithereens fan?
JM: Oh, absolutely. I was sitting there playing their songs one
winter. Me and Lee were learning their songs as we were sitting around messing
with each other and here we are a year later and they’re calling us up to go on
tour with them and we’re just looking at each other and going, “OK, now what do
we do?” It kind of stepped things up for us in a hurry, which was great.
DS: Did the kind of discipline and practice regimen you had in
baseball carry over into learning to play the guitar and sing.
JM: I think so, but I’m not so sure it’s from baseball. I think you
either have that kind of mentality or not, but it definitely comes in handy. A
lot of the same disciplines that I used in baseball that were my strong points
I’ve used in music—as far as having tunnel vision and going for it and working
hard and working on your craft and all that stuff. This record that we have out
now is the first project that I’ve been able to put all my efforts into and not
have the old baseball day job stepping on its toes. It’s been great. You know,
it’s a lot of work running a band and getting things going. You want people to
be able to hear the music. It’s all about getting it out there to the people
and there are different ways to do it, whether it be sitting and talking to you
about it or playing shows or whatever. There’s a lot to it.
DS: Do you have to be in the same mind frame to get up on stage as
you do to get up and pitch.
JM: It’s not so much of a competitive thing. What do you think of
playing sports, Mike?
MM: Well, you’re not trying to beat someone who’s trying to beat you;
there’s no one trying to make you look foolish and if you make a mistake,
you’re not going to get booed and it’s not going to be part of your permanent
record in a book forever and ever that you made this many mistakes this
particular tour: “You made 33 mistakes on that tour in 1988.” It doesn’t work
like that, but baseball’s like that. Every move you make is recorded forever.
DS: What about the competition between bands on a bill? I mean
sometimes you hear about that kind of thing.
MM: I don’t believe in that kind of thing between musicians.
Comparing one band or musician to another is like arguing about which is a
better color, red or blue. How do you argue that point? It’s all in the ear or
eye of the listener or beholder. You know, if you’re a naturally competitive
person you do have a certain amount of it, but often, if you’re playing on a
bill and there are other good musicians and their performance is good and it
goes good, well, that works in your favor because it fires you up. Maybe you’re
beat or tired and you need that little extra kick in the butt to really put out
at the top of your game so in that way it could work for you.
DS: So you guys really got to know each other on that tour. When and
how did you decide to work together?
MM: Well, Jack asked me to play on a few tracks on one of his
subsequent records and it went well and we have a good musical rapport. It’s a
comfortable fit. It’s fun for me because Jack’s writing is different from
Pat
[
DiNizio]’s writing because Jack is a little bit of a different
generation. He’s coming from a different place; not as rooted in the ’60s as
the Smithereens. Jack has a lot of that, but there’s also a few more
contemporary things as far as what feels we’re going to use drum-wise and stuff
like that. So, it’s a good way for me to expand my vocabulary.
DS: What was recording this album like?
JM: It was kind of crazy because it was done over maybe a year and a
half or two years, the last couple of years that I was playing ball. I had my
home studio that I was doing a lot of the stuff on and I would do drums at an
outside studio. It was a period of time where I probably recorded about two
records worth of material, which I pared down to one record for this. I’ve got
a whole ’nother bunch of songs sitting around waiting to be redone better now
that we’ve been together as a band as much as we have the last year or so. But
it was weird because it was a definite outlet for me and a lot of songs came
from the emotional roller coaster, I guess you could say, of seeing the end of
my career and not knowing what’s going on and thinking, “Wow this record might
actually be something I might be doing fulltime.” When I started doing it I was
planning on it being just another record that I put out while I played ball. So
it was all things in one.
DS: What are some of the specific songs that are tied to your career
ending or that kind of thing?
JM: “The Grave,” the song that leads off the record, is the one that
most directly relates to it. There’s lines in there about where I’m going and
what I’m doing with my life, basically. You know, it’s interesting because as
you write a song, you write certain things and you have certain things in mind,
but you go back after a while and look at it and so many more things come out.
You know, every song you write is going to have an element of where you are
emotionally at the time, at least the way I write. I’m not necessarily the type
of person that is crafting a song just to craft a song. It’s usually about
something I’m passionate about or feeling at the time or moves me to discuss in
song. So, obviously, where I’m at at the time emotionally is going to set it
off a little bit.
DS: There’s a song, “Hey Man.” Was that inspired by the brawl you got
into in New Orleans with
Eddie Vedder?
JM: No, not at all. That song was actually inspired by a spiritual
retreat I went on a couple of years ago and they told a story about their
thinking that we choose to come down here and take human form and kind of their
thoughts on what religion really is and what spirituality really is. And that
song was basically what came out of that little story for me. But what they
believed in was that Eddie was God, so you had it tied in. [laughs]
DS: How did you meet Eddie?
JM: My wife,
Meredith, used to live with his wife,
Beth,
way back in the San Diego days. They were roommates when he was playing in
In
Style and doing the San Diego thing and when me and my future wife at the
time met in Chicago she was really into music and that was one of the things
that kind of hooked us up and she said, “Oh, I’ve got another friend in music
and he’s really good.” And it was right as the [first] Pearl Jam stuff was
being recorded and going down, so we got to kind of watch that from Day One.
DS: Last year you did a charity show in San Diego that Eddie was part
of. Is that something you’re going to be doing yearly?
JM: You know what? It is. We’re doing it again this year. Last year I
was sitting out on my balcony just going “What am I going to do with this band?
What’s going to happen?” And I started thinking about the All-Star game. And I
thought I could probably put something together. We’re not that busy right now.
The record’s not out. The record was done. We were shopping it and getting
ready for it to come out. All that kind of stuff. So, I said maybe I’ll put on
a benefit and I just started calling a lot of my favorite bands. And everyone
was totally down with it. I said I’d get them tickets for the All-Star game if
they’d do the show. And it turned out great. Last year’s lineup was
Mudhoney,
the
Supersuckers, and Eddie played with both of them.
Matt Cameron’s
band,
Wellwater Conspiracy,
Pete Droge,
Marcy Playground,
and the ever-rising Stickfigure. So that was the lineup last year. This year we’re
actually doing two shows, one in Chicago and one in Milwaukee.
DS: What was that show like for you last year, Mike?
MM: The party afterwards was great, which means I don’t remember much
about the previous few hours.
JM: It was a rock and roll evening, let’s put it that way. Eddie was
coming up to me and going “How did you put this together? There’s no promoter
in Seattle that could have brought this group of Seattle bands together.”
Basically I did it all myself. I got on the phone, got in touch with all these
people, booked all their hotels and flights. I did everything myself with a
little help from my brother. And at the end of it, I just couldn’t wait to get
done with our set so we could just sit down and let it happen. This year I’ve
got someone to help me with it and it’s going to be a lot easier.
DS: How many of the players were into the same kind of music you
were?
JM: I’d say at the most, two per team. If you found two that listened
to any similar music or knew any of my top-10 favorite bands or stuff that I’d
have in my car it would be interesting. Most of my time was spent on the fringe
guys, who kind of liked the popular stuff, the watered down stuff of what was
really good. And I’d go and get all the good CDs and give it to them and say,
“If you like all that, listen to these. This is the good stuff of that stuff.”
I was always trying to convert.
DS: So you were really a proselytizer for the music.
JM: Definitely. I don’t know how many
Wilco Summerteeth
records I’ve bought just to give to people. I do that all the time. I mean, I
buy my favorite records and say, “Here, listen to this.” That’s my passion
about music. I believe everyone should listen to music that’s really cool. If
they did they would enjoy it.
DS: So in a clubhouse you probably have 25 guys who are into
different music, if they’re into music at all. Does everybody just listen
through headphones?
JM: There’s always a stereo playing. I never corralled the stereo. I
knew I was going to knock off 23 of the guys right away. So I never even got on
there at all. It was usually something very lowest-common-denominator-ish.
DS: Obviously, there are some players who really like to hang out
with musicians and some musicians who really like to hang out with ball
players. Are there places where the two intersect. You know, bars in various
cities.
JM: The strip clubs, I’d have to say. What do you think?
MM: There are a few bars where that intersection takes place. I’ve
had some really interesting times at the old Wriggleyville Tap below Cabaret Metro
in Chicago.
DS: Did a lot of ball players show up at Smithereens shows. I
remember Mike telling me, Jack, about your namesake
Roger showing up at
a Smithereens show in Kansas City.
MM: I met Roger during spring training. I was down there and there was
someone I knew who worked for MTV at the time who knew Roger and he introduced
us. Roger used to come out a lot. And, you know, just from being on the road a
lot and being in hotels…. One time I got out of the bus and somebody’s standing
there looking out as I walk out. And it was
Rick Cerrone, who was then
with the Red Sox. So I got to be friends with
Todd Benzinger and
Denis
Lamp, who were with the Sox at the time. They and Rick came to the show
that night. So one thing leads to another and you have mutual friends. I’ve had
phenomenal experiences as a baseball fan, seeing the game in ways that are
absolutely not accessible to the average fan. The more I learn, the more I see,
the more I experience, it all influences my appreciation of the game, and I enjoy
it all the more for all these experiences and talking to players. It’s really
cool to be able to watch, say when Jack was pitching, and be able to ask him
what was going on in a given situation. “What were you thinking?” And you
really get the inside game. It’s a great education and I really feel I have a
little bit of a unique perspective on the game that the average person doesn’t
have.
DS: How much baseball and sports are talked on the van or bus while
you’re traveling? Is that they way you pass the time between shows?
MM: I’d say a good deal. I’m always talking about baseball even to
people who don’t have any idea what I’m talking about, so it’s fun for me to be
around people who know what I’m talking about, let alone a major-league player.
Unfortunately, most of the things I’ve heard from Jack I can’t tell you about.
[They both laugh.]
JM: That’ll come out in my book, right after
Jose [
Canseco]’s.
DS: Since you brought it up, what did you think of his recent
pronouncement that 70% of ballplayers were on steroids?
JM: I don’t know. What’s the reason? I mean, does he just feel so
hurt he’s got to go out and hurt everybody else, saying stuff about other
players? What did they ever do to this guy? I don’t understand why he’d do
that.
MM: If he’s mad at the powers-that-be or the so-called power
structure in the game, why would you want to come and bring guy’s names into it
who were teammates; who went through the wars with him, so to speak.
JM: But that’s the reason why. We were discussing this on the way down
here. Jose doesn’t look at it that way. It’s not the wars to him. It was him
trying to hit home runs. His thought was, “They come out here to see me hit
home runs and you got 24 other guys out there.” When I was a little kid, I
always pretended I was winning the World Series in my backyard. And the guys
that don’t get that, are never going to get that. That’s where you have a guy
writing a book like that, who doesn’t get what it’s all about. And that’s all I
have to say about that.
MM: There’s only one
Ball Four. I think Jose’s overestimating
his own importance.
DS: Do you think Jose’s being blackballed by Major League Baseball?
JM: For what reason? If he could put up numbers, they’d throw him out
there. If he wasn’t hurt every two weeks, they’d throw him out there. The fact
that he can’t play defense takes away half the teams that he’s going to be able
to play for. Most of the others have DHs, he’s not your pro-type pinch hitter.
He strikes out a lot. He’s not putting the ball in play, and he’s not hitting
for average anymore. And basically he told all of baseball, I want to come back
to I can hit 500 homeruns. Who the heck’s gonna want that guy on their team? I
think that blackballed him as much as anything did. That would be my guess as
to why there wouldn’t be the interest in some places that maybe you’d think
there would be.
DS: Speaking of that kind of attitude, I’ve got to ask you your
feeling about Derek Bell’s “operation shutdown” this past spring?
JM: Mike should comment on that because it was the same week as the
big Anaheim versus Padres brawl with
Klesko and
Sele. Take it
from there Mike….
MM: I don’t remember.
JM: I’ll refresh you and then you can run with it. The quote from
Derek Bell was “I’m just in shutdown mode, because I didn’t walk into this
job.”
MM: Oh, I’m going to go into operation shutdown if I’m not assured of
a job.
JM: And at the same time, guys are fighting in spring training and
getting fined and suspended. In spring training we played a Stickfigure show
down in Arizona. We were saying, “How warped is that?…. Spring training
fights…. Everyone saying, “Oh these players, they don’t care about the game
anymore.” Well, you know what, you get into a fight in a spring training game,
that’s gotta show you that when you actually step on the field, you’re getting
it on. I mean, we might fight because we care about the game, and you care
about your turf and winning and that kind of shows people that the game is
strong and it’s real, it’s not just about making money and going through the motions.
On the other hand, Derek Bell can say that and it really hurts the game. [to
MM] That was your comment on it.
MM: Right, if there were a real commissioner, which there is not,
there’s only one in name, he would come down on someone like Bell for making
those statements. It wouldn’t take the Pirates to have to release him for the
good of the game. Remember when that existed? “For the good of the game…. In
the best interest of the game.” Somebody like Bell causes more damage because
the implication is that he’s not giving a hundred percent. That is the most
damaging thing in baseball, because then it starts getting into the area of pro
wrestling. Is it sport or sport-entertainment? When you buy a ticket to a
major-league ballgame the inherent bargain you’re making is that you’re seeing
players who are giving 100% of themselves to try to win that ballgame and are
out there performing at the best of their ability, whatever it is, on that
given day. Anything less, you’re being cheated. To sum up, if I were the
commissioner, somebody making a statement like Bell’s or some of the statements
that
Gary Sheffield has made over the years, those are the people who’d
be getting fined, not guys that are getting in brawls. I would let the players
police the games themselves. They have it backwards.
DS: What general manager in his right mind would hire Derek Bell?
JM: The same with Canseco. If you’re trying to build a team, you want
to have team players. That’s the hardest thing to put together the chemistry on
a team that can actually win. That’s why you can have Montreal and Minnesota
that they want to get rid of up on the top and doing well. It has nothing to do
with money, big name players and all this other stuff. It has to do with a
bunch of guys all working to win games.
DS: Who are some of the best team players you’ve played with?
JM: There are a lot.
Robin Ventura is a great team guy, a
great guy to play with. Just about the entire Yankees team in 1995; that was
probably the tightest-knit group of guys that were all on the same page of
anybody I played with.
DS: And they seem to have kept that going.
JM: Yeah, that was basically the core of the team that’s run off the
streak that they have.
DS: So how does Robin like right field in Yankee Stadium.
JM: It looks like he’s liking it a lot.
DS: Which ballplayers can you count on to show up at a Stickfigure
show?
JM: If
Charley Nagy’s anywhere in the vicinity, he’ll be
there. He’s been at all of them that he’s been able to get to. Just kind of a
smattering when they really get the urge.
DS: Is the groupie scene any different in baseball than it is in rock
and roll.
JM: I don’t know. We’ve got to start getting more people to our
shows, and maybe I’ll tell you.
DS: I mean, I know you’re both married guys.
MM: That was so long ago, Dave, I can’t remember.
JM: The one thing I have to say about it—just on a general theory—is
in baseball you’re in a town for three day. In music, you’re there for the show
and usually you’re taking off to go somewhere else, and very rarely are you even
staying that night. So you’d better put some fast work in if you’re looking to
get in on the groupie scene. I think you’ve got a little more leeway if you’re
a sports guy, if you want to go down that road.
MM: But people like us, we don’t have that kind of thing going on
anymore. Years ago, a guy like
Pete Townshend, says he picked up the
guitar just because it was a good way to get girls. There was a thing—a guy
with a guitar—that was something that really appealed to women. Now I don’t
know what appeals to women and girls. Not guitars.
DS: Jack, how much have you learned from Mike about the history of
music?
JM: Tons. I had little pieces here and there, but to get deeper into
it has been great. I have a strong knowledge from the 80s on and just little
nibblets of what’s been behind it.
MM: That’s one reason I don’t like a lot of current bands, when I
hear their roots don’t go back beyond
Jane’s Addiction. That’s not to
say anything about Jane’s Addiction one way or the other, but that’s not where
it starts. You don’t start something, you don’t get into a field, in the later
part of the timeline. I feel it’s necessary to go back and to embrace the very
beginning and to make that part of your vocabulary. I can hear that lack of
classic roots in many musicians today.
JM: I love when
Mojo magazine does those backwards lineages.
These guys were listening to these guys who were listening to this.
DS: Will the Smithereens be recording anytime soon?
MM: Probably. I don’t know when and I don’t know how as far as labels
and everything and whether we would just want to put out something ourselves.
That’s what I would like to do. I’d like to just have it sold on the Internet.
I’m very disillusioned with the music business.
JM: Oh, come on, Mike. What do you mean?
MM: I hate record companies. I hate them.
DS: How do you feel about that, Jack? You’re just starting out in
this.
JM: I’ve been around it enough to realize that it’s change even from
the time that I started in the music business. At that point, you could still
have music conversations with people in the industry, like we are now, and
relate at some level. Nowadays, if you find one person around an office that
you can have any kind of conversation with about music or music history or
what’s good and what’s not…. Those kind of people just don’t exist anymore.
It’s a bunch of marketing geniuses who are there to stuff the American feedbag.
It’s all sales, which is fine, it’s a business, but there should be more.
DS: Speaking of business, do you think there’ll be a baseball strike?
JM: Yeah, absolutely. They’ve been trying to get a cap for the last
seven or eight years. They’ve got a worldwide pay-per-view plan they’ve been
holding onto for a decade. You wonder why they’re paying $10 million just to
negotiate with these top Japanese players and then doubling it up to pay them.
They’re trying to increase the worldwide awareness and interest, which they
already have, and then they’re just going to go over and go to South America
and Europe, Japan and make it pay-per-view. And if they’ve got a salary cap,
that is just cleaning house. And that’s what they’re going to try to do. They
don’t care if they have to shut the game down again and shut the World Series
down again. Players have nowhere to go, because if players don’t strike, at the
end of the season, they can implement any situation they want. It’s a bad
scene.
DS: Do you think that has anything to do with Selig’s call for
contraction?
JM: I think that was just something to take everyone’s eye off the
ball. And I don’t know that from anything other than when I first saw it, I
said, “He’s just trying to get everyone’s eye off the ball,” which is the labor
disputes and talk about something else for a couple of months, which everyone
did. The whole thing with contraction, too, is they don’t want these teams to
move to another city because if a team moves to another city, no one gets any
money. But if they shut down these teams and then a team starts, like Arizona
did or Colorado did, the new ownership group, on top of just buying into it,
have to pay like a $250 million initiation fee that everyone gets to share.
You’re talking about half a billion dollars if two teams shut down and two new
ones start as opposed to moving. It’s not too hard to figure out. If you buy
the team, it’s going to cost you enough just to get the team up and running but
then you have to pay a $250 million initiation fee to join the club with all
these owners who are going out of business supposedly.
