John Fogerty - "Centerfield"

(Debuted May 25, 1985, Peaked #44, 13 Weeks on the Chart)

In a couple of weeks, the 2012 major league baseball season kicks off. With that in mind, this is the perfect time to toss out this song. Though it's been a familiar presence to those of us who are fans of the sport ever since it was released, it oddly missed the Top 40 during its chart run.

Centerfield was John Fogerty's "comeback" LP after nearly a decade away, and it touched on a lot of topics that called back to his childhood. And at that point in history, baseball was having a golden age and Fogerty was about to turn 13 when the New York Giants moved west to his native California. The song began after Fogerty watched the 1984 All-Star game from the seats behind centerfield in San Francisco's Candlestick Park.

Awash with references that most baseball fans would recognize, "Centerfield" name drops legends like Joe DiMaggio and Willie Mays, tips its cap to Casey At the Bat, and exhorts the coach to put him into the game. Over the years, it's become a very popular song at baseball games, and its synthesized hand-clapping that starts the tune has even been used for events for different sports.

John Fogerty - "Rock and Roll Girls"

(Debuted March 16, 1985, Peaked #20, 12 Weeks on the Chart)

After several years away from the spotlight, John Fogerty was back with a vengeance in 1985. The former Creedence Clearwater Revival front man came out with a great album called Centerfield that gave many of us who were too young to have heard that band a taste of what we were missing. The LP's three singles were each different, but all were great in their own way. The first was "The Old Man Down the Road," which sounded so much like a CCR track that it would lead to a lawsuit from the group's copyright holder. The title track was an homage to baseball, a topic that is as near and dear to me as music.

The other single was "Rock and Roll Girls," a song that recalled late 1950s/early 1960s rock & roll at a time when I was really becoming interested in rock's roots. It was a three-minute blast of sound punctuated by a wailing sax solo that really stood out among the other stuff on the radio during its all-too-brief time on the charts. It was written and produced by Fogerty, who also played all of the instruments himself on the recording.

It also helped one certain young fan want to see what else was out there. Granted, I really didn't need much of a push...but it helped tip me over the line.