Boston festival at Fenway combines two worlds

	Bronson Arroyo shows off his musical talent during last summer's Hot Stove, Cool Music Festival. AP
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By Andy Gray, SI.com

The worlds of baseball and music have long been intertwined, going back to 1908 when Jack Norworth wrote the lyrics to Take Me Out to the Ballgame and famously in 1967 when Paul Simon wondered what happened to Joe DiMaggio in Mrs. Robinson. But on Wednesday night, the two come together in Boston, where musicians and baseball fans alike converge on Fenway Park for the annual Hot Stove, Cool Music Festival. Scheduled to perform are James Taylor, Howie Day, Kay Hanley, Buffalo Tom (with guest rhythm guitarist Theo Epstein), Cowboy Mouth, Red Sox pitcher Lenny DiNardo and a slew of others.

The event was born in 2000 as the brainchild of Boston Herald Red Sox beat writer Jeff Horrigan and ESPN's Peter Gammons. The two were hanging out at the Paradise Club in Boston when they noticed a poster on the wall for a band called Thurman Munson. Horrigan mentioned to Gammons that he has a friend in the band Carlton Fisk and Gammons, whose knowledge of music is as sharp as his knowledge of baseball, mentioned another baseball-related group, Jack McDowell's Stickfigure. The two scribes realized they may have stumbled onto something and decided to organize a fundraising concert featuring baseball-themed music. But the original plan hit a snag when Horrigan and Gammons realized there weren't enough baseball-themed bands to fill out an event, so they brought in Hanley, a Boston native and former lead singer of the band Letters to Cleo to give the night a legitimate music feel and hoped for the best.

"I expected the place to be about half-full," said Horrigan of the first Hot Stove Festival in December 2000. "It was a Monday night and we only had two weeks to plan. But it was a resounding success. Obviously, the Gammons name was a huge draw."

This year, with Gammons resting at home while recovering from a brain aneurysm he suffered last month, the headliner is someone better known for trading Nomar than trading guitar licks: Epstein, the Red Sox GM who will play rhythm guitar with Boston-based band Buffalo Tom.

Epstein downplays his musical prowess, saying of his last two Hot Stove appearances with the band, "I doubt whether my guitar was actually turned on or not."

But the band was impressed enough with the GM, they offered him a permanent spot during his brief exodus from the team last fall, though Epstein insists the offer was "tongue in cheek." Whatever the case, for a man who spends most of his time at Fenway Park, the night of music at the old ballpark is one of his highlights of the year.

"It's a great vibe because everyone who attends the show loves baseball and loves music," says Epstein. "There's an electricity in the air. There's not a lot of expectations. Not everyone is thinking, 'I better get my money's worth.' Everyone is thinking, 'This is great. I get to talk about music and baseball with people with similar interests.'"