Former MLB Star Bronson Arroyo On What Pitching And Playing Music Have In Common

Steve Knopper
·3 min read
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Former Boston Red Sox and Cincinnati Reds star Bronson Arroyo’s punnily titled 2005 debut, Covering the Bases, included a cover of The Standells’ “Dirty Water” with Red Sox teammates and cracked the Billboard 200. Since his 2017 retirement, Arroyo has added songwriting to his arsenal, putting out 2023’s all-originals collection Some Might Say.

How do you compare playing baseball and performing with your band onstage?

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It’s kind of a strange thing. When you play at the highest level and you’re winning the World Series, or you win 15 games in a Major League season, you feel like you’re at the top of the mountain, doing your best work. I didn’t pick up a guitar until I was 27 years old. You never feel like you’re getting to the top. It’s this constant whittling of the wood, being in the basement, practicing over and over again. It doesn’t feel like something you were born to do. It feels like it’s something you’re constantly working to do to get better.

In baseball, the metrics that show successes are as objective as they can be, but in music, even when you have chart data, it’s totally different, right?

Right. Absolutely. Nobody can deny if you win 15 games in a season or punch out 200. That’s a solid year. No one can take that from you. Music is an art and it’s totally subjective to the listener… If I was one of those kids who was 5 or 6 years old at the piano and I was born with this gift, as I was my athleticism, you might think about it differently. But it’s this constant grind, and I enjoy that.

How does your preparation differ between pitching and performing music?

Leading up to a show, it’s very similar. You get all those jitters. You watch guys in a baseball locker room going into a routine and you watch guys in the band run through their routines. That’s a very similar feeling to standing on the mound and listening to the National Anthem. Once you start pitching, all that stuff eases. It’s just a lot more intimate with the music. What the [baseball] crowd thinks of you in those moments isn’t quite that obvious and personal as when you’re looking people in the eye and thinking, “Are you singing this song along with me?”

How much promotion do you do for your albums and shows?

Just a little bit. I’m not trying to make money off it. It’s always nice if extra money comes around, but that’s not the main thing. … I did a bunch of radio interviews and newspaper articles with writers from baseball and tried to infiltrate that world a little bit and do stuff that wouldn’t chew up too much of my time. I wasn’t trying to get on a plane and stop at every radio station in the country — which I would if I was 22 and in a van trying to push my music.

You’re on a golf trip now — are you doing music shows, or is this purely vacation?

No, not playing [live music] at all. I have a guitar with me, and these 10 songs we wrote, I’m trying to play them. There’s nowhere I go without having one — you know, those guys who go for a run four or miles every day, and if they don’t do it, it’s a problem. I’m just writing now. I’m going to try to put out 20 to 30 songs. I don’t even know what to do with them, to be honest with you. I’m just going to write a bunch of folk songs. Eventually, I’ll get them out.

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