Some of you know that in 1982, in a dairy-farm surrounded college town in upstate New York, future Episcopal priest Peter Mayer was selected as one of 14 players to represent Oneonta in the Little League All-Stars. ESPN was but three years old, and the biggest perk of being an All-Star was a red nylon jacket. There were also bragging rights to my best friend who was not selected; he would’ve made the previous year’s team, but the competition was too much.
Even though I didn’t see any ‘game action’, unless you count standing in the first base coach’s box as ‘game action’, and we lost our first game 3-1 on a disputed home run call, it was something I remember fondly. So when our own Jonathan Lanoue was selected for one of the Cumberland teams, I had to do something. So I made a mix of some great songs from 1982 that remind me of those Little League salad days:
Subdivisions-Rush
Heat of the Moment-Asia
Another One Bites the Dust-Queen
(Don’t Fear) The Reaper-Blue Oyster Cult
Edge of Seventeen-Stevie Nicks
Waiting on a Friend-The Rolling Stones
De Do Do Do, De Da Da Da-The Police
You Dropped A Bomb On Me-The Gap Band
Wanna Be Startin’ Somethin’-Michael Jackson
Tainted Love-Soft Cell
I Want Candy-Bow Wow Wow
Shadows Of The Night-Pat Benatar
Should I Stay Or Should I Go-The Clash
Under Pressure-Queen and David Bowie
Don’t Stop Believin’-Journey
A few notes are in order. Don’t Stop Believin’ was first and foremost a big swim team song for the Oneotters, our YMCA team, before the Sopranos was a twinkle in its creators’ eyes. Under Pressure has a great line on love: “Cause love’s such an old-fashioned word and love dares you to care for the people on the edge of the night and love dares you to change our way of caring about ourselves”. The Clash’s Combat Rock was just a seminal album for me, almost as much as Sandanista! You might be surprised to see Pat Benatar, or Soft Cell on there, but hey, it’s memories. And of course, Another One Bites the Dust was one of our all-time favorite request songs on WZOZ: “This one goes out to Elks from Landmark Datsun. Watch out tomorrow, boys!” My team was Eagles. Good luck to Jonathan, whose first game is Monday.
