Let’s not mince any words here: Everything that people say sabermetrics can’t capture is in this song. So, if you’ll permit me, I will now put my liberal arts education to good use by taking you track-by-track through this legendary record to interpret the genius of Bruce Springsteen’s misunderstood and underappreciated baseball mind. It really is incredible that Springsteen was able to write such an insightful, enduring commentary on baseball considering that many of the ideas and trends that he critiques didn’t develop until decades after the album’s release. And perhaps more importantly, Springsteen’s magnum opus is an incredibly insightful and nuanced commentary about analytics, scouting, and how we can best understand and enjoy the game of baseball. It turns out that each side of Born to Run tells the tragically heroic story of a different baseball man: one an overly confident sabermetrician trying to make his way in a game that has long resisted change, the other a thoroughbred scout struggling to find his place in a sport that’s evolved beyond what he once knew. Once you start to listen to the album through this lens, a whole new world of meaning opens up. These observations are unoriginal to the point of possible cliché-I wasn’t nearly the first to feel my passion ignite with the soaring title anthem or the haunting beauty of “Jungleland.” But I’ve identified another side of Born to Run that no other Springsteen fan or music critic has noticed in four decades: I think one of the greatest albums in the history of music is actually about baseball.
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Incredible as most of the songs are on their own, the unifying themes of contrasted and conflated romantic idealism and desperate yearning make the full record a true masterpiece greater than the sum of its parts. Springsteen has called Born to Run “the dividing line” of his career, and for good reason: after failing to achieve commercial success with his first two albums, Bruce poured his soul into what he thought was his last chance at stardom and set his sights on making “the greatest rock record 'd ever heard." Though he introduces us to a range of characters, stories, and emotions over the course of eight tracks, all throughout the album we are confronted by poignant expressions of Springsteen’s own passionate desires and aspiration for greatness, as well as the urgency with which he felt he needed to achieve them. I know I’ve mentioned my love for The Boss quite often in these pages (almost as much as I’ve tried to find convoluted reasons to plug my senior thesis research) I don’t think any one record fully captures the essence of Springsteen’s musical genius, but Born to Run is as close as you can get short of seeing him in concert, or at least listening to a high-quality live recording. This year marks the 40th birthday of my favorite studio album of all time: Bruce Springsteen’s Born to Run.
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