Geddy Lee of Rush talks bass and baseball

In his previous life as a music critic at The Evening Sun in Baltimore during the 1980s, Nestor Aparicio had an #AlmostFamous run interviewing many musicians and major bands of the era. He collects people. This is Geddy Lee of Rush checking in on the “Budweiser Sports Forum” on March 26, 1997 before the start of the MLB season.

Nestor Aparicio, a radio host, reflects on his 25 years in radio and his long-standing admiration for the band Rush, particularly Geddy Lee. He recounts his interactions with Lee, a baseball enthusiast with a vast collection of Negro League memorabilia, including signed baseballs from every U.S. president. Lee discusses his rediscovery of baseball while on tour and his friendship with various baseball players. They also talk about the 1997 baseball season, with Lee predicting the Yankees, Indians, and Mariners as strong contenders. Lee shares his experiences singing the Canadian national anthem at the 1993 All-Star Game and his views on interleague play.

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

Rush band, Geddy Lee, baseball fan, Negro League, autograph collection, Kansas City museum, American presidents, 1997 interview, Blue Jays, Roger Clemens, Japanese baseball, 1993 All-Star, Camden Yards, interleague play, added playoffs

SPEAKERS

Geddy Lee, Nestor Aparicio

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Nestor Aparicio  00:00

Welcome back wnst Towson, Baltimore, and wnst.net we are in the midst of wnst rock week, and this is my little presentation after 25 years of doing radio. Here. How many rock and rollers I’ve had on the actual show? And I’m sure you’ve heard by now some of the awkward conversations that I’ve had with various rock stars back in the 80s that were sit down interviews meant for a newspaper story and weren’t really done with a radio tone or resets and stuff like that. So I’m telling some stories, but this one is was made for radio and was on the radio. And for any of you who have listened for any period of time, you know my affinity for certain artists, and you know whether it’s Billy Joel or Bruce Springsteen, the guys in sticks, but Rush has always sort of been my favorite band. If you see me in my various rush T shirts on the W, N, S, TV, YouTube videos or on our Facebook Live, you know that I’ve been seeing rush for as long as Rush has been Russia, my first rush show was September 26 1980 at the Capitol center, and Saxon opened up. I’m still kind of a bit biford fan as well, with Saxon little heavy metal thunder. But for rush, all of the albums later, all the tours later, they’ve played so many places, whether it’s driving them down to the spectrum or to Meriwether, they’ve played, they’ve played the capital. So they play, they play the arena here, many, many times. I probably have seen 50 or 60 rush shows over the years. And I’ve talked to Getty Lee enough to he knows who I am, and I know who he is. He’s a huge baseball fan. And we were at a point in the 90s where he would come on once a year. And, you know, at this point, I tried to get him on last year, but they were kind enough to participate in our charity event that we were doing for the 3030 and he held up the swab the first night of the tour and invited him in Chicago, which was awesome. At one point, I’m going to sit down and do something really awesome with him, and sit and talk about baseball heck every time the Orioles play the Blue Jays, I’m looking behind home plate to see if Getty’s in the front row. But this interview specifically, and this is the only one that I can locate, so this is the only proof of conversation I have with Getty Lee. But he did call into the show maybe three or four times in the 90s. I’m still unearthing some of the tapes. And then the original interview that I did with him back in 1984 on the grace under pressure tour, and that was at the Baltimore news American. I did write a story on that, but I have since lost said interview. Not like some people have moms that throw away the baseball cards in the attic. I’m missing a portion of early interview tapes from 1984 and 85 with Paul Stanley, with Kevin Cronin from ARIA Speed Wagon, with Jim Peter Rick from survivor, with Rick Emmett from triumph, as well as Tom Hamilton from Aerosmith, Walt Perez ater from Chicago. These are the missing interviews that I have, but not much is missing 99% of what I’ve done I have, especially on the radio, I am missing an Alice Cooper and a Sammy Hagar interview from nasty nationwide. But you know, such as life, you know, a quarter of a century later. But this is Getty Lee. This is from 1997 we do talk a little bit about baseball, for those of you that don’t know about Getty Lee’s baseball side and again, I’d love to talk to I’d love to talk to half these musicians again later in life, and catch up in different ways. But Getty specifically is just such a huge baseball fan. He has the world’s largest collection of Negro Baseball autographs and memorabilia. His collection is on loan in Kansas City at the Negro Baseball museum. It’s not a Hall of Fame, it’s a library. And if you ever get out to Kansas City, by all means, see that if you Google my give a spit day that we did a tour of the museum there in Kansas City, and I show the baseballs, and I’m sure you can google Getty Lee and Negro Baseball library and read about it and see all the autographs, but also American presidents. He has signed baseballs from every American president who has signed a baseball. So you know, you go back into the early 1900s he has those baseballs, and he has showed those in various videos. And if you’ve seen the music legend series on MTV HD, you can check that out as well. So Getty Lee, big baseball fan, my all time favorite musician, and all time super funny, quirky, wine drinking, world traveling, bon vivant. Awesome, dude. You know you looked up cool, and there’s a picture of Getty Lee there. Getty Lee visited us in 1997 I was at Wlg at the time brokering radio was before the advent of wnst, and I know it’s 1997 because we googled the. Kenny Lofton trade with Alan Embry, with the Braves from Marquis Grissom and David justice. And there is a reference to that in this interview, as well as many 1997 baseball references. So let’s go back two decades, live from Canada, the great, great Getty Lee, we welcome onto the line. Line from, I think he’s in Toronto. I don’t know. I didn’t check the international phone line there, but we welcome Getty Lee, fantastic bass player from the rock band Rush. Getty, welcome back to the Bucha sports forum. How are you? Hey, I’m

Geddy Lee  05:32

great. Nice to be here. I

Nestor Aparicio  05:33

guess you’re in better shape being a blue jay fan, knowing that our pitching rotation has gone to hell here. Well, I

Geddy Lee  05:37

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just want to, I just want to tell you my shoulders. Fine. They can call me if they need me to fill in. Well, see, yeah, I figure

Nestor Aparicio  05:46

if we could call on the former Blue Jays General Manager, we can call on the former Blue Jays second baseman, we can call on the former Blue Jays pitcher to actually start opening day for us here, sacrilege to my way thinking in the late 80s, early 90s, then we might as well call on the Canadian rock stars as well to come down.

Geddy Lee  06:02

And there seems to be a confusion of birds down there. Well, we

Nestor Aparicio  06:06

got Orioles and ravens now as well. Are you in Toronto today? Is that correct? All right, so how has the community up there taken to Roger Clemens? I guess that’s the first question we’ll throw at you,

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Geddy Lee  06:17

right? You can imagine the amount of publicity have forgotten, and I’m sure the front office here was doing it largely to ticket sales, which since the strike, have been on the lane as they have been, to a large degree. That’s that’s worked, because there is certainly a broader interest back in the game and in the Blue Jays, since the scene

Nestor Aparicio  06:39

we’re chatting with Getty Lee basis from the rock band Rush. And I think Rush is going to be doing another leg of a tour coming up sometime in June, maybe passing Philadelphia, or somewhere here about and I’m sure you’ll be hearing about it here, because, of course, we’re big rush fans here. That’s why bring Getty on. Not only that, but Getty also a baseball aficionado. Many liner notes with baseball references. First thing for you, how in the world did you become a baseball fan? Being a full blooded Canadian, as I’m assuming you are, you didn’t get baseball up there till 1977 and I’m sure you were a fan long before then. Well,

Geddy Lee  07:10

when I was very young, I think we have the Tigers farm system here, farm team here in I think they were Toronto Maple Leafs baseball club, actually, which played in an old stadium downtown that’s no longer around

Nestor Aparicio  07:24

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St Louis. Can have football and baseball, Cardinals, I guess you’re gonna have baseball and hockey. Maple Leaf the maple leaf cells in Canada. It’s an amazing thing. It’s

Geddy Lee  07:32

true, and it’s the only grammatically incorrect sports team in the world. Anyway. All that aside, I didn’t rediscover baseball, really, till I was on the road. And you know, you know the hours that US rock musicians keep, I would find myself very often waking up at one or one o’clock or 12 o’clock and having breakfast before I went to the venue. And very often there’d be a ball game on, and I would watch it, and I kind of got hooked to the game that way.

Nestor Aparicio  08:02

So this happened, not as a young lad. This happened as a young adulthood type thing, yeah. So you were, like most Canadians born with skates on at that point, when you’re eight, nine years old, a hockey guy.

Geddy Lee  08:13

You wouldn’t have wanted to see me on skates. I was not a natural. I was not a typical Canadian born to play hockey, you know, important to play the base? Yeah, maybe let’s talk

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Nestor Aparicio  08:24

a little more about the 97 season. Obviously, some reason to be excited in Toronto. I know you got a lot of friends around baseball. Jeff Montgomery is a good friend of mine. Said that he knows you. You’ll be pitching here for the Royals during the course of week. Said he once flew on a plane with you during the 93 All Star game and stuff like that. For you to have friends involved in baseball as you being a musician, and I’ve, I’ve snaked the out of Camden Yards on on occasion as well, seeing games. And obviously, here for the for the 1993 All Star game, for you to have association with friends. Do you still root for the Blue Jays, or do you root for friends? I mean, have you made a friend on the Blue Jays are now pitches somewhere else. I know you and Mark Langston are close, for instance.

Geddy Lee  08:58

Yeah, I have a few friends around the league said, I’ve met through various means over the years, and some of them have become very good friends. And, you know, I I root for them and But although, you know, of course, I root for my home team, but if my home team is facing one of my buddies and I root for my buddy, you got to do it.

Nestor Aparicio  09:15

Then you have an affiliation with the Expos at some point, with Warren Cromartie, or my losing my

Geddy Lee  09:19

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mind. No, he was. I met him quite a long time ago, in the early 80s, and we became very good friends. Still are, and, you know, I even traveled to Japan to see him play in the Japan series in 1990 tell

Nestor Aparicio  09:33

me about Japanese baseball. It’s one thing I’ve always wanted to do. The only exposure I’ve got to it are those like, sort of cloudy videotapes that come back in the off season, when we do our little barnstorming American tour, and of course, seeing Mr. Baseball with Tom Selleck. And the only thing that is that close seeing that there

Geddy Lee  09:50

was quite a lot of it that was very close to what it’s like over there, but also was played up a little bit, as you can imagine, for the movie purposes. That. I mean, going to a ball game over there is, is desire for your average North American, because the crowd is very colorful, and they have these rooting sections that are like cheerleading sections with flags waving. And these more like a college basketball Yeah, more like a high school chant that’s going on all the time. And, you know, the quality of baseball is very high. There’s some very athletic players there.

Nestor Aparicio  10:24

I think we’re seeing that with the day on OMO and Robu and how much these American teams are willing to give up to try to bring these guys in. Yeah, there’s a very good pitching too. All right, as far as this season, who do you like? And tell me why are you think this is a bounce back here for the Jays to get back into the playoffs. Yankees obviously making some moves, and the Orioles right now with very bad news. I’m sure you heard it when you’re on hold. Messina being out heads of the DL, Brady Anderson is destined for the DL tomorrow. And Getty, it’s it’s snowing. It’s not just snowing. It’s blizzarding here right now. Well,

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Geddy Lee  10:56

it’s been snowing here for a couple days too. And Brady Anderson going on the DL, personally hurts my fantasy team. Now that’s I hate when that

Nestor Aparicio  11:06

I like ready know that that He better get it together, yeah.

Geddy Lee  11:09

But I think the Yankees are still very strong, very hard to be in Division. I think the Orioles looks strong as well. And when their guys get back, they’re gonna be tough. And I think the Blue Jays are going to be in the hunt just because of the strength of their pitching.

Nestor Aparicio  11:22

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What about the mariners in the end, the White Sox now, with Ventura out, the Indians obviously picking up a lot of strength, trading Kenny Lofton over. But I mean, you cannot discount marquees grism and Dave justice and Matt Williams in that lineup.

Geddy Lee  11:35

Now, they are incredibly deep in terms of hitting, and I think their pitching is is more adequate than people realize.

Nestor Aparicio  11:40

Was saying Jack McDowell might be headed for the DL now too. I don’t know if you heard

Geddy Lee  11:43

that. Yeah, I did hear a rumor of that. But I like the mariners chances a lot too. I think they’ve got a very solid staff, and you can’t complain about their hitting potential too. So the American League just needs to be getting deeper and deeper.

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Nestor Aparicio  11:55

Give me those American League picks. Come on. We’ll get you off the fence here, East Central, West and a wild card. Well,

Geddy Lee  12:00

I still like the Yankees in the East, in the central I still have to favor the Indians, even though I think the White Sox are going to be real tough, but I don’t know if their pitching is as good. And I like the mariners in the West, although I would rather say the angels, because, because of my buddy, pitches for the team. So

Nestor Aparicio  12:19

you don’t think the White Sox can give Cleveland a run in the central mean,

Geddy Lee  12:23

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I think they do have a chance to give them a real good run, but I don’t know if it will be enough. They certainly, you know, could be in there as a wild card, and they could upset somebody. Now,

Nestor Aparicio  12:33

give me your wild card. Get off the fence. Here is a Jays birds. You like the White Sox with the White Sox, you don’t like the Orioles. We don’t like the Blue Jays either, so I guess we can’t get on you too much. Nationally, give it to me.

Geddy Lee  12:47

Okay. National League, I go with the Braves. I think they will laugh. I think they will beat out the Marlins in the Central Division. That’s a tough call for me. I think I like the Cardinals again, although Houston, Houston’s an interesting team. I

Nestor Aparicio  13:06

think they have some pitching, and I think Darrell cow can really step up be a number one. I think the way that the they pretty much phase Doug Dre back out and sent him back off to to the White Sox this point, I think he was sort of on the washed up side. Yeah, I think the Astros, they got some pictures you’ve never heard of who had real decent campaigns. Let you mean Shane Reynolds. Shane

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Geddy Lee  13:23

Reynolds team wins last year. Mike Hampton, Billy Wagner, is going to be real good for them too, I think. And in the West, you know, I tried to beat that Dodgers

Nestor Aparicio  13:34

pitching staff. I’m a Padre enthusiast for some reason. I mean, I’ve met Tony Gwynn several times. I’m a big fan of his, so I just always find myself rooting for the Padres. And that’s kind of a hard above the head thing, because I know we look on paper and we see that Dodgers pitching rotation, we say, hey, they go out there four and five days in a row, and very easily could get shut out baseball for the better part of a week, sure,

Geddy Lee  13:54

but I think Todd deal is going to help them there. And this young guy, Wilton Guerrero, looks very

Nestor Aparicio  13:59

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good. And so good at this point. They sent a suna out, who’s a guy I think they, they believe was going to start the season in in LA, he’ll start in Albuquerque. Give me a wild card. You know, are you like everybody else jumping on this, this Florida Marlins campaign?

Geddy Lee  14:13

They’re awfully good, you know, I think they have a chance to be the wild card. All

Nestor Aparicio  14:17

right, so you’re gonna, you’re gonna stay on the fence there, but you take the Florida Marlin,

Geddy Lee  14:21

I guess, between the miles the Astros. Look, I

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Nestor Aparicio  14:23

got a big fan here. Get a guy named Scott Norton, you’re in Baltimore, to fax me a bunch of questions. I’m just going to throw them at you. What are your best memories of the 93 All Star game, as far as singing the national anthem, I know at one point I gotten, I believe you, an invitation to sing the American National Anthem at Memorial Stadium for an Orioles game, but the Canadian anthem? How did that whole thing come about? How did you wind up getting up getting invited to do that? You know, I

Geddy Lee  14:44

don’t know. I got a call from the Major League Baseball office, and they just asked me if I would be interested. I guess somebody must have told them about my association with my love of the game and all that. And I was just thrilled to do it’s one of those things you just have to

Nestor Aparicio  14:57

do, and you did it in a great city, too. Yes, yeah, it was.

Geddy Lee  15:00

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I mean, the idea of doing it at Camden Yards, I have to admit, was very special to me, and it was just a glorious night that I’ll always remember. You

Nestor Aparicio  15:09

go to a lot of ball games, a lot of ballparks Camden Yards compared to the other stadiums from your mind, and I get around a lot too. People always ask me, and I say, I think it’s the best of the new ballpark. So I haven’t been out to Denver yet. But as far as Texas and Cleveland and some of the other parks that I’ve seen, I’ll still take Camden Yards, and I know it’s flaws. I know the left field corner, there are a lot of bad seats. But as far as the new ballparks, I think they’ve totally out on Cleveland and Texas, for instance. Well, I’ve

Geddy Lee  15:34

never been to Texas, and I haven’t been to Chris field, but it’s definitely the best in my view, that I’ve seen so far. All

Nestor Aparicio  15:41

right? Now, Brynn Smith was a guy, was a buddy of yours, right? Absolutely, former pitcher for St Louis, Montreal, some other stops along the way. He actually played, did some sound check stuff with y’all, I think, on the grace under pressure tour. Have you ever taken BP?

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Geddy Lee  15:54

Well, yes, I have a couple of times, much to my embarrassment. Actually, my friend Mark Langston had me taking BP this this past spring in Arizona. And did you get it out of the infield? Or no? Yeah, I got a couple out of the infield. All right, so

Nestor Aparicio  16:11

what you’re saying, you’re working your way up to that, that all star pre game celebrity thing,

Geddy Lee  16:16

I have to say that it was a fairly ugly swing I have. Did you ever play organized ball, or was this now, no, never we. Alex and I, my guitar player, played in a in a league up here for a couple of seasons, and on a team called those darn fish, but it wasn’t anywhere in your profession.

Nestor Aparicio  16:33

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Now, I understand, do you have a crew softball team? Is that correct? No,

Geddy Lee  16:37

we haven’t actually played. We used to play once in a while on the road. But lately, the crews been wanting to play golf, so we’ve been having golf tournament.

Nestor Aparicio  16:45

Golf tournaments. Well, we got a golf tournament coming up here for charity too, but I’ll buzz the old the old organization about that. Now, one last thing here, inner league play. Now this is where we really you’ve rooted for the Expos at some point in the Blue Jays. Some point. Do we really want to see the, you know, the Baltimore Orioles on the field with the Philadelphia Phillies. Me, personally, I’m more of a purist, more of a traditionalist. I don’t want to see this. It’s happened. I think we could go into an hour long dissertation about the gods of baseball and how they’ve done the fans wrong. And I’m, I’m sure I could get you up on the pedestal and start chanting about that interleague play. Rub you the wrong way.

Geddy Lee  17:18

No, it doesn’t actually. I’m pretty much a purist, too. I mean, I’m all in favor of getting rid of the DH and making every ballpark have natural grass, but interleague play doesn’t bother me at all. I think a couple of weeks in the middle of the season creates a little interesting you know, there are some teams in some cities that haven’t been to a World Series in a long time. And you know, why shouldn’t fans be able to see the good players from the other league.

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Nestor Aparicio  17:42

You know, the one thing that I was against was the the added playoff format, having extra teams involved. And I found that over the two years that it’s happened, I know what happened to the sour end of the strike and that kind of thing. I found it to be great that we get these, these races in September where everybody gets a chance, and Lord knows, and not just because I’m an oral fan here, and we benefited from the last year, but I think every year they’re going to be five or six cities that at least benefit from the ability to be in a pennant race where there would have been none before.

Geddy Lee  18:10

Yeah, I have to agree with you. I was pretty dead set against it, and I found myself just finding it very exciting when it actually came around. I.