“Dave Dravecky”

“Dave Dravecky”

Dave Dravecky spent most of the ‘80s as a left-handed pitcher for the San Diego Padres and the San Francisco Giants. He wasn’t an all-time great, but he was really good. He made the all-star team in 1983, his second season in the big leagues, and he pitched in the World Series for San Diego in ’84.

Dravecky was traded to San Francisco in 1987 for the stretch run, and he won seven games and threw three shutouts in half a season for the Giants before turning in two excellent outings against the Cardinals in the playoffs.

The next season, however, he was limited to just seven starts before doctors discovered a malignant tumor in his left arm. Dravecky had surgery in October, removing half the deltoid muscle in his pitching arm. His humerus bone was also frozen, a procedure that was meant to destroy all cancerous cells.

Doctors recommended that he sit out the entire 1989 season, but Dravecky wanted to get back on the mound as soon as possible. He spent July 1989 pitching in the minors, working his way back, and on Aug. 10, 1989, he returned triumphant to the big leagues, throwing eight innings to beat the Cincinnati Reds 4-3.

Five days later, in his second start back, Dravecky’s humerus bone broke as he delivered a sixth-inning pitch to Tim Raines. It was a harrowing scene, with Dravecky writhing on the ground in pain after an entire stadium had heard the gruesome sound of a career ending and a life forever changed.

After the 1989 season, doctors found that the cancer had returned. They tried unsuccessfully to treat it for nearly two more years, but in June 1991, Dravecky’s left shoulder and arm were amputated. The limb that had once meant everything — the limb that had once defined him, that had carried his very identity — was suddenly gone. Can you imagine?

This song is set sometime after that. Sometime after Dravecky has lost his arm, when others have begun to move on, but he remains in a state of dire distress. When his wife has long since begun to wonder if her husband will ever really feel better, you know?

What would it be like to grapple with that? I don’t know, but I imagine being haunted by the ghosts of old aches, and by the loss of something that had once made you feel truly alive. Maybe it isn't the kind of thing you ever recover from as much as deal with and accept.

In the end, it seems Dravecky found peace, found a new understanding of himself and the meaning of his time on this Earth. He found the reverie that assures us that we are more than any one aspect of ourselves, and he has spent the decades since sharing a message of hope and perseverance.

The odd twist that accompanies this song is that I learned a few months ago, long after having written the song, that Dravecky was a highly publicized member of the John Birch Society during his playing days. The John Birch Society is a far-right political group in the U.S. whose beliefs and membership overlap heavily with Trumpism and the more recent right-wing political movements.

As far as I know, Dravecky has not publicly addressed his ties to the John Birch Society or his beliefs since his playing days ended. Perhaps his views have changed. I would hope that his great personal tragedy and the string of race-related tragedies we have witnessed together over recent decades would have helped to reshape his thinking. Perhaps not.

Either way, I felt I couldn’t leave that unaddressed, as his Birch membership struck me as the magnetic opposite of so many of my own beliefs and recent activities. So, the cover art is cropped from a photo I took in Oceti Sakowin Camp during my time opposing the Dakota Access Pipeline in Standing Rock nearly five years ago. An American flag hung upside down is a signal of “dire distress.” From Dravecky’s Birch beliefs to the undeniable anguish of his first cancer diagnosis and the unimaginable outcome, the idea of "dire distress" seemed to fit the song in a way that encompassed all of these odd nuances.

“Dave Dravecky” features Andre Calderon on bass, Kenneth Maldonado on drums, Taylor McCarrey on lead guitar, and the incomparable Kelly Erb on the fiddle. She specifically asked when we were recording if she should play “violin” or “fiddle” on this song, and the answer seemed obvious.

The song was produced, mixed and mastered by Jeff Woollen, the genius behind Raven Cries Recording Studio on Vashon Island.