I am the most blessed person in the very very tiny part of my now Yankee existence. The reason I say that is because I came along at the perfect time. I got to witness so much and was around so many great and wonderful players.
I got to see Dimaggio get a base hit in an old-timers game. I got to see Mickey Mantle hit a home run off of Whitey Ford also in an Oldtimers game.
I got to understand the true value of brotherhood in baseball in the decade of the 70s. I mean I had an incredible education about life and giving back.
There are just so many subjects that I learned about because of the Yanks & baseball. One of my favorites is how much music influenced our team.
How very important it was to the majority of our guys. At any moment you would hear Bobby Murcer walk into the player’s lounge singing a John Denver song like Colorado Rocky Mountain High or I would walk into the bathroom and go sit in a stall and all of a sudden I would hear someone in the next stall singing … I am I said… right away I knew it was Thurman Munson sounding just like Neil Diamond.
I will never forget a very young and nervous Billy Joel walking around the Yanks locker room for the first time and actually realizing the incredible history in that old Stadium clubhouse. The thing that I thought was so cool was Billy Joel telling Thurman that he could not believe he was actually in the same locker room that all those Yankee greats use to share.
I guess it was something that we took for granted, even the Batboy.
I always loved that our musical guests always dreamed of being baseball players and the players dreamed of being singers.
I will never forget Bobby Murcer pulling out a guitar every once in a while before getting traded after the 1974 season and playing a song here and there. To me, it was like watching an old Elvis Presley movie. The only thing that didn’t happen was the rest of the team getting up and doing a dance.
Years later I would see Ron Guidry play the drums in an old storage area at the stadium and a couple of decades later we would get the Paul Oneil and Bernie Williams show. Paul on the drums and Bernie on his guitar.
I want to thank all the wonderful musicians that visited our players and would become positive influences to them during some pressure-packed seasons. People like The great drummer Buddy Rich and Bobby Short who was a great Steinbrenner favorite naturally Billy Joel because we loved you just the way you are (he understands what I mean) the incredible Sax player Richie Cannata and the guy that was my all-time favorite musical visitor was Paul McCartney. The reason being was that in 1974 the Yankees had to play our home games at Shea Stadium because they were renovating Yankee Stadium. The big song that summer was The Band on the Run by Paul McCartney and Wings. Our team organist was the Legendary Eddie Layton. He had a relationship with McCartney and because we were playing so well it became our theme song. Every time one of our players hit a Home run Layton blasted the Band on the Run. McCartney actually became a Yankee fan because of that season and what that team did for his song and vice versa.
McCartney was always one of the nicest of the musicians and next to Frankie Valli my favorite. Years later Paul would actually promote one of my children’s books.
I must add that music meant the world to George Steinbrenner, he actually played the piano and his oldest son Hank was a terrific guitar player who also had a wonderful music background. I guess you can say that music has always been a good part of the Yankees Universe.
