BURGER SCOOT

In my 65-year life, two of the most important things to me have been rock music and baseball. Drilling down, one of my all-time favorite rockers was Bob Dylan, and my favorite baseball team is the Oakland Athletics. And I have a prominent place in my heart for the early electric Dylan and the early Oakland A’s–from when they moved from Kansas City through the dynasty years of 1972-1975. Ironically, icons like Dylan (as well as Bruce Springsteen, The Clash, and others) drew my focus from baseball at about the time the A’s dynasty ended.

I’m back following baseball though it is torture watching billionaire A’s owner John Fisher and MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred kill my team and fuck over baseball in general. As for rock music, I haven’t bought or listened to any rock albums in decades. Click here for a post about my short but intense love affair with rock. I now only listen to classical music concerts, but only live–the only recordings I listen to these days are audiobooks and political podcasts.

With all that said, somehow, the magic algorithms of the web thought I should know that Bob Dylan once wrote and recorded a song about one of my all-time favorite ball players and Oakland A’s: Jim “Catfish” Hunter. I’m not surprised this song didn’t make it on the Desire album, I was never a fan of that album, but I vaguely remember all the tracks were better than “Catfish.” Still, “Catfish” is worth at least one spin.