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Putting the Pedestal to the Metal

Phillies clubhouse music is less country and more Metallica--at least for pitcher Randy Wolf.

By Rob Trucks

Add Comment | Comments: 0 | Posted Jul. 28, 2004

Wolf's desire to leave Metallica on their heavy-metal perch, ironically enough, comes from a baseball lesson he'd learned years before.

"I was, like, 11 years old and I used to go to Dodgers games," Wolf says. "They were playing the Giants, and I loved Will Clark. And I went with my dad. First pitch after we sat down--homer. I'm like, 'Oh my God, this is awesome.' I thought it was the coolest thing ever.

"So after the game I went down, and there was a little group of kids around him, and I kind of put my ball out to him. And there was a kid in front of him, and he kind of pushed the kid out of the way, which pushed the kid into me. So I felt like he was pushing me, and that crushed it. That crushed me ever really looking up to Will Clark ever again."

Wolf knows there are parallels between musicians and a major league ballplayers--attention, money, travel, fans.

"You're kind of put on this pedestal and sometimes looked at as not human," he says. "That's why, when I was a kid, I kind of never really wanted to meet Metallica."

Though the pitcher's tale may be cautionary (and surprising, given that he routinely challenges large-sized men), his story has a happy ending.

"As soon as you find music," he says, "and it finds an importance in your life, it won't go away. The music I listen to doesn't change--it just kind of evolves. But yeah, you know, I always listen to music."

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