Baseball’s ‘Woke Hillbilly’ Had More Songs to Write

Night had fallen, spirits had been shifting and the songwriting baseball coach was rounding third base and headed for dwelling. Twice within the autumn of 2020, medical doctors had suggested a gravely ailing Tim Flannery to say goodbye to his household. Both instances, he declined to give up.

The proper arm that despatched dwelling so many San Francisco base runners throughout the Giants’ three World Series titles from 2010 to 2014 waved away a last coda.

The street again from the brink was as unlikely as the person himself. An infielder turned fashionable coach, Flannery was all the time one thing extra. A musician who carried a guitar with him on the street, and a surfer who posed with a board on considered one of his buying and selling playing cards, he couldn’t assist however stand out within the strait-laced world of Major League Baseball.

Having transitioned totally into philanthropy and songwriting in his baseball retirement — his basis has raised a whole lot of 1000’s of {dollars} for anti-bullying causes — he had extra folks to assist and extra tales to inform. So giving in to a life-threatening staph an infection was not an choice.

Fate and Flannery ultimately reached a standstill throughout his harrowing, three-month battle with the an infection, however medical doctors nonetheless warned him that he would possibly by no means stroll once more. He fell into sepsis and required two again surgical procedures to clear away abscesses and broken tissue. He went dwelling with a tube that despatched antibiotics streaming into his coronary heart. That was the simple half as a result of his spouse of 42 years, Donna, administered these doses.

Eventually, walker in hand, together with his little granddaughter Jade using shotgun on the crossbar, he minimize a deal: 25 instances up the driveway, slowly, 25 instances again, painfully, and Jade can be rewarded with an ice cream sandwich.

On notably productive days, she’d rating two.

“I’ve definitely changed my life,” Flannery, 65, stated on a latest afternoon at a neighborhood espresso store close to the seaside, a well-recognized twinkle — life — again in his eyes. He had rehearsed for 2 hours earlier that day. Soon, he would nail down particulars for the subsequent present together with his band, the Lunatic Fringe.

“I’ve looked at moments and things a lot more clearly,” he continued. “And you do try to create good thoughts and try to remember, like, this moment right here. Because if I ever go back to that situation again, I want to try to bring as many good memories and good hallucinations as I can.”

His keep within the hospital was harrowing. “Vicious,” he stated of time spent tied down so he didn’t hurt himself or others. The hospital was two miles from his dwelling, however every look out his window introduced extra distortion. Not all his visions had been terrible. His good friend Bob Weir, a founding member of the Grateful Dead, appeared by apparition. So did one other good friend, Jimmy Buffett.

The that means of these explicit visitations would come into focus later, convincing Flannery that they had been no coincidence.

Authentic

Through greater than 4 a long time of baseball and music, first in San Diego after which in San Francisco, Flannery grew right into a beloved participant, coach and troubadour — a character — due to an endearing knack for leaving items of himself with whomever he met.

“Authentic,” stated Flannery’s bandmate and producer, Jeff Berkley. “He is exactly who you think he is. He’s not trying to put on any airs. He’s not trying to be from Kentucky; he is from Kentucky. Until he stopped drinking, man, he carried moonshine around with him wherever he went. He’s a total hillbilly. He wears that term proudly. He’s probably the first woke hillbilly.”

Because Flannery felt some baseball folks seen his guitar suspiciously throughout his years in San Diego, he initially supposed to maintain that a part of his life quiet when he agreed to teach for Bruce Bochy in San Francisco.

“I was going to come coach third and not let anybody in,” Flannery stated. “I thought, ‘No one’s going to tear my heart.’”

But in 2011, his music got here to the forefront when he based the Love Harder Project in response to the horrific beating of Bryan Stow, a Giants fan who was attacked within the Dodger Stadium parking zone on opening day in 2011. With the inspiration, which has a mission of anti-bullying and anti-violence, Flannery has helped increase round $100,000, principally by reveals with the Lunatic Fringe, to offset the Stow household’s medical prices.

“Hey, I hit nine home runs in the ’80s,” Flannery stated. “I can’t just write a check.”

But he might write, and play, and sing.

Stow, now 54, sustained a critical mind damage within the assault and right this moment lives at dwelling within the Santa Cruz space together with his mother and father. He is taking reminiscence and mobility programs at a area people school and discovered on Father’s Day that he was going to be a grandfather.

“Flan was one of the first to come to the forefront and help Bryan out. It was just amazing,” stated Ann Stow, Bryan’s mom. “And he’s been that way throughout Bryan’s journey. Flan and Donna are such an important part of our family.”

In all, the Love Harder Project has raised round $360,000 in Flannery’s ongoing battle towards bullies and violence.

Air and Water

Despite what some suggested early in his profession, Flannery was by no means going to decide on baseball over music.

“Like having to choose between air and water,” he stated. “I’ve got to have both.”

Though Flannery principally was raised in Anaheim, Calif., his household got here from the hills of Kentucky. His uncle, Hal Smith, was a catcher who smashed a three-run homer for Pittsburgh within the eighth inning of Game 7 of the 1960 World Series. Had the Pirates’ bullpen held the 9-7 lead, Smith would have been a hero. Instead, the Yankees tied issues up and Pittsburgh’s Bill Mazeroski received the sport and earned immortality.

Smith, who performed 10 seasons, repeatedly carried a Gibson J35 guitar with him on the street. When Flannery signed professionally at 19, he adopted go well with.

Flannery’s first supervisor, Roger Craig, instructed him to give attention to baseball somewhat than enjoying the guitar, however the instrument remained his fixed companion. Kids had been born — Daniel now could be 37; Ginny, the mom of Tim’s three grandchildren, is 35; Kelly is 32 — and the guitar was there for all of it.

“If it was a crazy day, having that guitar mellowed him out,” Donna Flannery stated.

Another uncle, George, satisfied Flannery that enjoying music wasn’t sufficient and that he wanted to document his songs to inform the tales of his household’s life. Among them is “Pieces of the Past,” a tribute to Flannery’s preacher father, Ragon, who was dying of Alzheimer’s. Jackson Browne and Bruce Hornsby carried out on that recording.

On his musical journey, Flannery has opened for Buffett and Emmylou Harris. The Grateful Dead’s Weir entered his life throughout the advantages for Stow, and Walker, the outlaw nation legend and longtime hero of Flannery’s who wrote “Mr. Bojangles,” befriended him throughout the San Francisco years as nicely.

“The great thing about the Bay Area, one of the greatest blessings, is I found a place where they understand you can be an artist and still coach third,” Flannery stated.

Playing Through Pain

When the pandemic struck and the world closed, Flannery retreated to a getaway he calls his “treehouse” within the mountains north of Santa Barbara.

At his cabin, there isn’t a electrical energy, no cellphone service and the water comes straight from a nicely. The staph an infection that almost killed him began, he believes, as he was constructing cages to guard the potatoes, corn, tomatoes, okra, spinach and various different greens he vegetation there.

“You’ve got to put everything in cages, because there’s animals,” stated Flannery, who retired from teaching after the 2014 World Series however stayed in baseball, doing tv evaluation, by 2019. “I’ve never done any of that stuff because I never had summers off. Somehow, I got cut, or the soil got in.”

As an outdated ballplayer, when the again ache attacked, he figured he would simply play by it.

“I took four Advil, drank a huge cocktail and usually I’d polish that off with a bottle of wine to kill the pain,” he stated of his nightly routine.

But one afternoon he fell asleep, exhausting, on the deck, waking up solely as a result of it was time for dinner for his canine, Buddy. Stubborn as his grasp, Buddy nudged and licked Flannery till he got here to. If not for that, Flannery stated, he thinks he would have died proper there. Instead, the 2 someway drove to his San Diego-area dwelling, the place Tim collapsed and was taken away by paramedics.

As he was recovering in early 2021, Susan Walker phoned sooner or later. Her husband, Jerry Jeff, had died from most cancers in October, and he or she invited Flannery to carry out at a celebration of life in Luckenbach, Texas, that June. At the time, he couldn’t even sit as much as play his guitar, however he was decided to make it.

The memorial live performance was Flannery’s first gig after regaining his well being, and each of the boys Flannery felt had visited him within the hospital, in spirit solely, performed a component. Weir, who was scheduled to be in Luckenbach earlier than journey points stored him away, phoned simply earlier than Flannery went onstage. And Buffett, who died this month, was there in particular person.

“Hey, you look just like Tim Flannery, only older,” Buffett teased.

The outdated coach performed, at Susan’s request, a Walker unique entitled “Last Song” and a tribute Flannery wrote for his good friend, “Last of the Old Dogs.”

“I think I kind of stunned people,” Flannery stated. “I don’t know how it happened, and it was all beyond myself. When I came off, the whole crew had tears in their eyes.”

Donna Flannery stated she finds her husband to be “a kinder person these days, nicer to everybody.”

As one of many traces in a tune of his goes, kindness lives on the opposite facet.

And so the person who was instructed to go away his guitar at dwelling and give attention to baseball has as an alternative hung up his spikes. And he’ll hold attempting to make the world just a bit bit higher.

“When I play, I pray before each show that the great translator, the holy spirit, shows up and changes everything I say and turns it into whatever people need and stick it in their hearts,” Flannery stated. “And a couple of days later, when you start to hear back from people, yeah, there’s a reason why I’m playing.”