More than 1.5 million people tuned in to a Major League Baseball game in 2023, according to ESPN’s press room. The New York Times also reports that MLB seasons regularly outperform both the NFL and the NBA in ticket sales, though those numbers are skewed by the number of games played. Still, that’s a lot of people with their eyes on the ball.
Some of those people happen to be high-profile rock stars, many of whom have been following their favorite teams since they were kids listening to games on the radio.
Joan Jett went to her first game in 1969, when she was 11 years old, to see the Baltimore Orioles versus the Oakland Athletics. It turned out to be a no-hitter for Orioles pitcher Jim Palmer. She’s been keeping tabs on the team ever since.
“How can you not be an Orioles freak after seeing that for the first game?” Jett told Billboard.
For others, it isn’t so much about the specific team as it is about the general spirit of the game: “Baseball, to me, represents life,” Bob Dylan once said on his Theme Time radio program, though he’d never appeared to support one team in particular. “It’s about heroes and goats, it’s about success and failure. It’s about individual effort, it’s about team effort.”
For those who think baseball unfolds too slowly, Dylan countered: “They don’t understand the game within the game. They don’t understand [how] much changes from pitch to pitch. It’s actually fractions of a second that a hitter has to make a decision that he is actually going to swing, and then put it either between guys or hit it over the fence.”
Musicians are used to being on stage in front of thousands of people, but sometimes it’s nice to be an audience member, cheering on someone else. Read on to learn more about these 21 Rock Musicians and Their Love of Baseball.
Batter Up: 21 Rock Musicians and Their Love of Baseball
Some are more casual fans, others have been loud and proud rooting for their favorite team.
Gallery Credit: Allison Rapp
The Rock Supergroups You Totally Forgot
