Yes, there is life after baseball

I don't give a lot of thought to what happens to baseball players - i.e., those who play for the Olde Towne Team - when they retire. 

The ones who appear in my consciousness are the ones who become analysts or the "color guys" who pair up with the play-by-play guys to announce games. (And the ones who appear in my subconsciousness apparently include former Red Sox knuckleballer - and current Red Sox analyst - Tim Wakefield, who made a recent appearance in my dream. I was at a wedding - whose? who knows? - and was at the same table as Tim Wakefield and his wife.)

No, my worry about ballplayers is what they're doing for us fans in the here and now. So once they're gone, while they may not exactly be forgotten, it's a matter of out of sight, out of mind.

Of course, modern baseball being what it is, if you're in the game for long enough, even if you don't have an especially stellar career, you're likely set for life. 

Still, there is life after baseball. And if ex-ballplayers all don't end up like Red Sox pitcher (Impossible Dream vintage) Jim Lonborg, who became a dentist, some do end up having an Act 2 that doesn't involve the game. 

Case in point - make that guitar case in point: Bronson Arroyo.

I was always pretty fond of Arroyo, who spent a few seasons with the Red Sox in the early-mid 2000's - including 2004, the Reverse the Curse year, when the Sox won their first World Series in 86 years.  

If for nothing else, I loved Arroyo for the incident he was involved in during Game 6 of the ALCS that year.

As fans will remember, the Red Sox were down 3-0 to the Yankees in the American League playoffs. But, damned if they didn't keep fighting back. In Game 6, they were trailing 3 games to 2.

Arroyo on the mound, he was racing over to first to tag A-Rod out on a grounder. A-Rod slapped the ball out of Arroyo's glove and proceeded on his merry way to second (while Jeter, who'd been on first, gunned it towards home and scored). Not so fast! 

The umpires convened and, much to the vocal, trash-hurling dismay of the crowd at Yankee Stadium, decided that A-Rod was guilty of interference. He was called out; Jeter had to get back to first, his run nullified. And the Red Sox went on to win that game, the next game, and the World Series. (The World Series win was just frosting on the cake. The cake of beating the Yankees in such dramatic fashion was pretty damned good on its own, without the frosting.)

Anyway, I knew at the time he was with the Red Sox that Arroyo was a musician. He performed around Boston with a baseball-adjacent group. He did vocal backups on Red Sox anthem Tessie, by the Dropkick Murphys. 

And now, after years of doing covers, he's releasing an album. 

“Some Might Say” is a collection of 10 guitar-driven songs that bring to mind Pearl Jam or Tom Petty. It was a project Arroyo started in 2017, the final season of his 16-year career...

The desire to make his own record goes back 20 years when Arroyo borrowed a guitar from fellow pitcher Jack McDowell and went on stage for one of the first Hot Stove Cool Music benefit shows in Boston started by Peter Gammons and Jeff Horrigan.

“That jump-started my music career,” Arroyo said. “Just being around that core group of musicians and gaining information from them and seeing how they represented themselves on stage.

“It was all foreign to me at first, but it changed as I got to know people like [Boston-area rock favorites] Juliana Hatfield and Bill Janovitz. I developed an appreciation for how they built up a body of work.” (Source: Boston Globe)

Arroyo doesn't view his music as a job-job. Like a lot of pros, he made enough coin to do what he pleases. Which is golf, ski, travel, and play occasional gigs in the Cincinnati area. (The majority of his baseball career was with the Reds, where he was traded by the Red Sox in 2005.)

“Music is more a hobby than a second career. But I feel like I have to be on stage and performing. It makes me feel good. But I don’t want it to feel like a job. It’s just something I love to do.”

If it's a hobby, it's a pretty professional one. His band includes members who've worked with the likes of Miley Cyrus, Tom Morello, and Iggy Pop. So,

Don’t dismiss “Some Might Say” as a vanity project. Arroyo has a tight band and he sings with urgency and passion.

“Bronson is the real deal. He’s no dilettante,” said Kay Hanley of Letters to Cleo and a Hot Stove Cool Music mainstay. “The guys in his band are the best around.”

And the guys in his band o' bros in 2004 were the best around, too.  

As we launch into a season for the Red Sox that looks none too promising, it's nice to know we'll always have 2004. And that memorable evening when slap-happy Alex Rodriguez knocked the ball out of Bronson Arroyo's glove.

Play ball! Play music!