Letters In The Dirt

from The Baseball Ballads by Chuck Brodsky

/

  • Streaming + Download

    Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    Purchasable with gift card

      $0.99 USD  or more

     

  • Buy the Full Digital Album

about

A song I wrote for my dad, who taught me to always root for the home team. Dick Allen used to get booed by Phillies fans when I was a little kid, and he responded by writing words in the dirt around first base between pitches.

lyrics

Me & you, we never booed Richie Allen
I never understood why people did
He hit a homer every time he stepped up to the plate
That’s what I remember as a kid

Richie in the field out there by first base
The target of some mighty foul words
With his shoes he’d scrawl between the pitched
“B-O-O” in great big letters in the dirt

Philly fans, they’ve been known to get nasty
When Joe must go, they’ll run him out of town
I saw Santa get hit by a snowball
And then get hit again when he was down

Me & you, we never booed Richie Allen
Even if he did sometimes strike out
I was too young to read the papers
To know what all that booing was about

That big collapse of ‘64 was ugly
They blew a lead of 6 and one-half games with 12 to play
Some might say their fans were justifiably angry
World Series tickets printed up in vain

Philly fans, they’ve been known to get nasty
When Joe must go, they’ll run him out of town
I saw Santa get hit by a snowball
And then get hit again when he was down

Going back to old Connie Mack Stadium
You teaching me the rules of the game
We root-root-rooted for the home team
Those other people should’ve been ashamed

This was before the days of the million dollar contracts
Before the days of the artificial grass
He stood a bit outside the lines which made him fair game for those times
Richie Allen never kissed a white man’s ass

Me & you, we never booed Richie Allen
No, we’d pound our mitts & we’d yell, “We want a hit”
How could they call a guy a bum after he’d just hit a home run?
That didn’t make any sense to a kid

Now I’ve since found out all these days later
Now I know a lot more than I did
And if back then you knew, Daddy, why all those other people booed...
Thanks for letting me have my heroes as a kid

credits

from The Baseball Ballads, released May 20, 2002
Chuck Brodsky - vocal, guitar
Jenny Hirsch - acoustic bass
David Hamburger - dobro

license

all rights reserved

tags

about

Chuck Brodsky image

Chuck Brodsky Asheville, North Carolina

See bio at www.chuckbrodsky.com/bio. If you'd like to support me further, you can do so through my paypal address - chuck@chuckbrodsky.com. Thanks.

contact / help

Contact Chuck Brodsky

Streaming and
Download help

Redeem code

Report this track or account

If you like Chuck Brodsky, you may also like:

Bandcamp Daily  your guide to the world of Bandcamp

On Bandcamp Radio

Featured guests are the golden-voiced Baby Rose and psyche soulsters Brainstory.
listen now