“This is your last chance, and I’m not talking about one of those Major League Baseball Steve Howe kind of last chances.” — Leslie Nielsen in Naked Gun 33 1⁄3 (1994)
Baseball pitcher Steve Howe was born more than fifty years ago this month on March 10, 1958 in Pontiac, Michigan. He died several years ago at the age of 48 by the side of the road when his pickup drifted off the road and overturned at 5:55 a.m. on April 28, 2006.
Howe had been one of the best pitchers in baseball, with highs such as winning Rookie of the Year in 1980 and saving the clinching game of the 1981 World Series for the Los Angeles Dodgers. But it was another kind of “high” that haunted his life, as drug addiction led him to be suspended from baseball multiple times. He was suspended for substance abuse problems seven times, including a “permanent” ban in 1992, although the ban was eventually overturned on appeal.
Howe dealt with addiction from a young age, and his cocaine use was his downfall in baseball. Many questioned how many chances one should get in baseball, leading to the above joke in Naked Gun 33 1/3.
Howe played for the Los Angeles Dodgers (1980–1983, 1985), the Minnesota Twins (1985), the Texas Rangers (1987), and ended his Major League Career with the New York Yankees (1991–1996). In the clip below, you can see a young Howe being introduced before the second game of the 1981 World Series at Yankee Stadium with the other Dodgers. It’s a moment of great success, even though the smiling Howe could not know that within a week he would win the fourth game of the series and be on the mound during the sixth game when his team became World Champions. (video starts at 5:05 where Howe is introduced.)
Howe also could not have known at that moment how drugs and suspensions would destroy his career. Despite his demons, though, he still had talent late in his career, serving as the Yankees’ closer in 1994 and earning 15 saves. But that was his last good year, and by June 1996 the Yankees released him. Two days after his release, authorities arrested him at the airport for having a loaded gun in his suitcase.
He tried for a comeback in 1997 playing with the Sioux Falls team of the independent Northern League. The comeback failed, and he ended up in Arizona owning an energy drink company. When he died, he was driving from Arizona to California to visit family.
I cannot help thinking of his last year playing baseball for the Sioux Falls Canaries. He must have known that his career was over and that his drug use had contributed to that. It already had been a few years since he was a Naked Gun joke. What kind of hope did he hold when he took the field in South Dakota night after night following his days wearing a Yankee uniform in New York City just a year earlier? During the next nine years before he was killed in a car crash did he look back on his time in Sioux Falls with regret or happy that he still tried?
As noted above, some argued that baseball gave him too many chances as it was. He had talent and opportunities that few get, so I understand the argument. But I wonder if we should impose limits on opportunities when life’s chances and opportunities always run out anyway. Life is cruel enough, so maybe we should not make it worse.
Howe played baseball for our amusement too, but by the time he had burned up his talent, fans and teams no longer needed him and he was left on his own. And, as U2 notes, “Sometimes You Can’t Make It On Your Own.” Sometimes you can’t make it with a little help either.
Do athletes get too many chances to make mistakes? Leave your two cents in the comments.
Today is International Women’s Day, and as we discussed in a post last year about Helen Reddy and “I Am Woman,” the day’s history goes back to 1911. Speaking of the special day, you may not know that a famous woman played a key part in the technology you likely are using right now to access the Internet. This week on CBS Sunday Morning, the show profiled a side activity of famous movie actress Hedy Lamarr. Although she was known for her beauty and her stardom, she had a room set aside to study engineering and work on ideas for new inventions. Richard Rhodes recently wrote about Lamarr and her roles in real life in Hedy’s Folly: The Life and Breakthrough Inventions of Hedy Lamarr, the Most Beautiful Woman in the World.
One of Lamarr’s ideas later formed the basis for wi-fi technology. She had developed the idea as a way to help defend against German torpedoes as World War II approached. At the time, though, the Navy dismissed her idea and instead asked her to use her beauty instead of her brains to sell war bonds, which she did. If you only know her for her acting roles such as in Samson and Delilah (1949), or even if you only know her name from the references to her in Blazing Saddles (1974) by Harvey Korman’s character Hedley Lamarr.” (which prompted the real Lamarr to sue Mel Brooks), check out this story below.
The little-known hobby of the actress shows that Lamarr was more complicated than many knew at the time. While her beauty gave her a great career, fame, and money, one sees a touch of tragedy in her search for something more.
What is your favorite Hedy Lamarr film? Leave your two cents in the comments.
Robert Sherman, who with his brother Richard Sherman co-wrote numerous Walt Disney classics, has passed away at the age of 86. The Sherman brothers composed music for such films as Mary Poppins (1964), Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (1968), The Jungle Book (1967), and other films. They also composed the oft-played, “It’s a Small World After All.” Among their many awards, the brothers received Academy Awards for the score of Mary Poppins and for the best song, which also was from that film, “Chim Chim Cher-ee.”
Richard’s brother Robert has explained that among their classic songs was Walt Disney’s favorite song, “Feed the Birds” from Mary Poppins.
It is a beautiful song that is unusual for a children’s movie. The song is not about dancing and happy animated creatures, but instead it is about a poor (homeless?) woman taking care of birds. One commentator has argued that the scene has religious overtones about “stewardship” and “a responsibility on humanity to care for nature.” It’s an interesting argument that reflects on the pivotal role of the woman feeding the birds in contrast to the children’s capitalist father who balks at the children spending their money on bird feeding. Wikipedia recounts how when Walt Disney first heard the song, he recognized that it was the central meaning of the film about charity and caring for others.
As a child, I found the scene both scary and intriguing (the latter of which might have been from the mystery to my American ears about what Julie Andrews sang when she sang “tuppence a bag”). Speaking of caring for others, the woman who played the small part of the bird woman was Jane Darwell, who had played Ma Joad in The Grapes of Wrath (1940). Disney coaxed her out of retirement to play the part in Mary Poppins, which was her last film and which had some similar themes to her role in The Grapes of Wrath. Not a bad message from her or the Sherman brothers. RIP. In their honor, be nice today.
Although the Washington Post had called this Bruce Springsteen song “cartoonish,” to understand it as one of Springsteen’s greatest songs, one needs to look back to origins going back through Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Woody Guthrie, and Curtis Mayfield.
In 2012, Bruce Springsteen released his album Wrecking Ball (2012) to generally good reviews. Yet, the Washington Post claimed that one of the songs on the album, “Land of Hope and Dreams,” is like a “pose” full of “[c]artoonishly austere American cliches.”
Well, the Post is wrong about the song. Most of us first heard “Land of Hope and Dreams” when it was played during the 1999 reunion tour with the E Street Band. It later appeared in a live version on 2001’s Live in New York City and 2003’s Essential Bruce Springsteen before finally appearing in a studio version on Wrecking Ball in 2012.
Why would Springsteen release a studio version of a song more than ten years after it had already appeared on an album? Besides the fact that the prolific songwriter has been known to sit on songs for decades before release, the timing is perfect for this song for three reasons discussed in more detail below.
First, the new version of “Land of Hope and Dreams” is a beautiful tribute to the late Clarence Clemons. Second, the song brings a little hope to an album about hard times. Finally, the song is not a “pose;” it is one of Springsteen’s most beautiful songs, evoking Woody Guthrie and Curtis Mayfield while turning a classic folk song on its head.
(1) A Fitting Tribute to Clarence Clemons
First, the above new gospel version of the song from the new album is one of the final songs recorded with Clemons, so one may understand that it was important for Springsteen to include Clemons on the album. And because the song goes back to 1999 when Springsteen reunited with the E Street Band, it also evokes the connection among the band mates.
It was not surprising that when Dave Marsh wrote an essay memorializing Clarence Clemons that he entitled the article, “In the Land of Hope and Dreams.” Springsteen often has included references to the E Street Band members in his songs, ranging from “Tenth-Avenue Freeze-Out” to “The Last Carnival,” a tribute to deceased E Street Band member Danny Federici. Here, the placement of “Land of Hope and Dreams,” featuring Clemons’s sax solo, next to the final song on the regular album, “We Are Alive,” where Springsteen imagines his own death, connects the album to the Big Man and his sweet soul departed.
In The Guardian, Springsteen noted that when listening to the new album, “When the sax comes up on ‘Land of Hope and Dreams,’ it’s a lovely moment for me.” What a perfect tribute.
(2) A Song of Hope
Second, the album Wrecking Ball is Springsteen’s recession-era CD, and the song signals a way out of hard times. Springsteen’s last CD, Working on a Dream, came out during the recent recession, but it had been recorded during a period of hope as then Senator Barack Obama was running for president.
By the time Springsteen toured to support Working on a Dream (2009), the economy and the mood of the country had changed, leading to dissatisfaction and some despair. So Springsteen had to rework setlists from an originally upbeat theme to include more of his past songs about hard times. He even added Stephen Foster’s “Hard Times Come Again No More.” During that time, he apparently began thinking about this album, as during the tour he debuted this album’s title song, “Wrecking Ball.”
While there is a touch of sadness in almost every Springsteen song, including classics like “Thunder Road,” he often mixes dark and light. When he sings about despair and hopelessness, he is rarely hopeless. So, on an album about hard times, it is not surprising that he would signal to us that there is some hope: “Tomorrow there’ll be sunshine/ And all this darkness past.” As in the first single, “We Take Care of Our Own,” he embraces one of his common themes that hope lies in caring for each other.
(3) The American Songbook and Trains: “This Train”
Finally, we come to why “Land of Hope & Dreams,” one of Springsteen’s most optimistic songs, is also one of his greatest and not just a cartoon as the Washington Post claims. The song embraces much of the American songbook. With the song’s reference to “bells of freedom” it evokes the Bob Dylan song that inspired the name of this blog.
But, more prominently, “Land of Hope and Dreams” connects to the long tradition of songs about trains. This legacy travels from Robert Johnson, Jimmy Rodgers, and Hank Williams through songs like Cat Stevens’s “Peace Train.”
To understand “Land of Hope and Dreams,” though, we must begin with a classic folk song, “This Train,” which Springsteen has confessed helped inspire “Land of Hope and Dreams.” Big Bill Broonzy recorded the traditional song “This Train,” and the great Sister Rosetta Tharpe had a hit with “This Train” in 1939.
“This Train” goes back even further in time. Woody Guthrie adapted the traditional song as one about going to glory if you are good, because that train “Don’t carry nothing but the righteous and the holy.” The song specifically excludes gamblers, liars, smokers, con men, rustlers, side street walkers, wheeler dealers, and hustlers.
One may hear Guthrie’s version in this scene from Bound for Glory (1976), with David Carradine portraying Woody Guthrie.
It is interesting that Guthrie became associated with a righteous song, when the lyrics seem counter to many of his principles. Yet, one may also see it as attacking the con men of the establishment.
When Guthrie’s editor-agent proposed changing his autobiography’s title from Boomhchasers to Bound for Glory because of the book’s descriptions of Guthrie singing the song to homeless men, Guthrie initially balked. He was worried that readers would think he meant “Bound for Glory” to apply to himself. His understanding of the phrase from the song was that “the common people” are bound for glory. (Joe Klein, Woody Guthrie: A Life.)
“This Train” may be bound for glory, but many sinners have sung the song. Below is a performance by some of the early Sun Records rockers and admitted sinners, including Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins, and Roy Orbison.
The song goes back even further in American history, as “This Train” was used by slaves to convey messages to each other on the Underground Railroad, with “glory” meaning “freedom.” Still, despite the history and inclusiveness attributed to the song, in the lyrics the train that is bound for glory limits its ridership to exclude sinners, however that term is defined.
Springsteen takes that limit and turns it on its head. As he has explained, “Land of Hope and Dreams” is a response to “This Train,” spreading a message of inclusiveness instead of a message of exclusion.
“People Get Ready”
In case anyone missed the message of “Land of Hope and Dreams,” on the new studio version one hears the Victorious Gospel Choir repeating the refrain from Curtis Mayfield’s “People Get Ready.” That song originally was a hit for the Impressions in 1955 (discussed in more detail in a previous Chimesfreedom post).
The gospel songs of Mayfield’s youth inspired him in writing “People Get Ready.” And in looking closer at the lyrics and hearing the song sung below by Alicia Keys, one may understand how the song inspired Springsteen either consciously or unconsciously in writing “Land of Hope and Dreams.”
People get ready there’s a train comin’; You don’t need no baggage, just get on board; All you need is faith to hear the diesels hummin’, You don’t need no ticket, just thank the Lord.
Mayfield did not specifically address the sinners of “This Train” in “People Get Ready.” But his song implied the sinners could still board the train as long as they had faith.
Climb On Board This Train
Springsteen, though, goes even further than Guthrie and Mayfield. His train has no requirements and calls everyone to board.
Springsteen does note that “faith will be rewarded.” Faith in what? God? Rock and roll? He does not say. And that is the beauty of the song. We are all saints and sinners and we are all welcome. Just have faith in something, even if it is each other.
Yes, Washington Post, the welcoming train in American music is an American cliche. But every decade or so it is good for us lost souls to be reminded that we all are on the same journey together.
This train Carries saints and sinners; This train Carries losers and winners; This Train Carries whores and gamblers; This Train Carries lost souls.
{This last video from a Springsteen performance at the Civic Center in Hartford, Connecticut on May 8, 2000 is the E Street Band’s wonderful guitar-heavy version of the song that also appeared on 2001’s Live in New York City album. I love the opening riff of this earlier live version of the song, but I will reserve judgment for which version I prefer after numerous more listens of the newer gospel version.}
Do you prefer the new 2012 version of “Land of Hope and Dreams” at the beginning of this post or the 2001 live version of “Land of Hope and Dreams” at the end of the post? Leave your two cents in the comments.
With Spring Training baseball games having started this weekend, one’s mind naturally turns to the National Pastime and childhood memories. My young baseball memories center around the Cincinnati Reds, and during that time I had several encounters with Pete Rose. In addition to watching him play baseball on television and in person, there were a few times where my friend David and I went to a spot in the Riverfront Stadium parking lot where we knew Rose would emerge after the game. He would always stop and sign autographs for us two kids, exchanging a few brief words about the game with us. On another occasion, I got his autograph when he and some other members of the Big Red Machine played a charity basketball game at a local college. Remembering how much fun we had getting those autographs makes me see some tragedy in the fact that Rose now makes much of his money signing autographs, including selling online memorabilia such as baseballs that say in Rose’s handwriting, “I’m Sorry I Bet on Baseball.”
I provide that background to show my bias in enjoying 4192: The Crowning of the Hit King (2010), which covers Rose’s baseball playing career with no mention of his banishment from baseball. I imagine the filmmakers wondering, “How can we make a film about Pete Rose without discussing his gambling?” And then one came up with the idea: “We’ll call it ‘4192’ and just cover his entire career up to his hit that broke Ty Cobb’s all-time hit record. We won’t even miss out on that much by not covering up to his final hit of 4256.” So, the movie avoids Rose’s gambling demons, with the only time betting being discussed is when Rose and teammate Tony Perez tell a story about betting on which one would be the first to use the bathroom in the new Riverfront stadium (Rose won).
So, the film is not a complete portrayal of Pete Rose or his career, and I concede that you cannot fully understand the man unless you see how his drive and determination drove him to dark corners as well as to great heights. But if you love baseball, you still might enjoy the documentary love letter to the sport and Peter Edward Rose’s playing career. No matter what you think of Rose, he always loved baseball and his enjoyment of the game comes through as he tells stories about his playing days, including how he came to be called “Charlie Hustle.” The tales are often funny and sprinkled with baseball stories about many greats, including Mickey Mantle, Enos Slaughter, and other players who played in Rose’s era.
The movie includes interviews with other players, but everything is one-sided by using players who are friends with Rose, such as Mike Schmidt and my favorite Red, Tony Perez. There are no interviews with players like Johnny Bench who are not close to Rose. And when the film discusses Rose’s confrontations with other players on the field, there are no voices from those other players. There are occasional unintended insights into the man, such as his story about his father refusing to stop to eat if the child Rose’s team lost. But for the most part, we only get Rose’s side of stories like his collision with Ray Fosse at home plate in the 1970 All-Star Game.
Perhaps because I have read several books that lay out the other side of the story, I was not unhappy to just relive the great moments on the field with some funny stories from Pete Rose and others along the way. If you are looking for a walk down memory lane in between the foul lines — and you do not care that this one movie does not delve deep into the troubled soul of the man — you might enjoy this one. Then you should just grab a hot dog and a beer and watch 4192: The Crowning of the Hit King, which is available now for instant streaming on Netflix and on Hulu.
Do you think it is appropriate to make a movie about Pete Rose and not address his gambling? Leave your two cents in the comments.
Baseball pitcher Steve Howe was born more than fifty years ago this month on March 10, 1958 in Pontiac, Michigan. He died several years ago at the age of 48 by the side of the road when his pickup drifted off the road and overturned at 5:55 a.m. on April 28, 2006.
