Delta Dragons
| 1998 Delta Dragons | ||||||
| Pitchers | ||||||
| Garcia | Guthrie | Mahler | Mayall | Mingus | Nyro | Parker |
| Seeger | Simon | Yarden | ||||
| Infielders/Outfielders | ||||||
| Berg | Bernstein | Boretz | Dylan | Gillespie | Hart | Heifetz |
| John | MorrisonJ | MorrisonV | Ponty | Thomson | Van Vliet | Young |
| Manager | Coaches | G.M. | Owner | Park | ||
| Joplin | Anka | Franklin | Mitchell | Wolfman | Euterpe | Orpheum Park |
| Italics indicates Rookie player | ||||||
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| Alban Berg | 1885-1935 | ||
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Outfield | ||
| Austrian composer and pupil of Arnold Schoenberg. Married atonal style with classical form. | |||
| Cosmic Record | Alban Berg Link | Classical | |
| Leonard Bernstein | 1918-1996 | ||
 | Rightfield | ||
| Conductor, composer and protege of the great Serge Koussevitsky, conductor of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Bernstein made his New York Philharmonic conducting debut in 1943 when he was a last minute substitute for Bruno Walter. From 1958 to 1969 he was the Philharmonic's lead conductor. His 1957 musical West Side Story was an unqualified hit. | |||
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Bernstein Link | Classical | |
| Benjamin Boretz | 20th C. | ||
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Infield | ||
| A contemporary composer, especially influential in the avant-garde musical scene. He is a music teacher at Bard College in the Hudson Valley. | |||
| Cosmic Record | Boretz Link | Avant-Garde | |
| Bob Dylan | b. 1941 | ||
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Firstbase | ||
| One of the greatest musicians of his time. Early influenced by the social conscience of Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger, Dylan emerged in the 1960s and 1970s as a major voice of social protest. In the 1980s and 1990s his work became more spiritually focused and inward, again mirroring the times. | |||
| Cosmic Record | Bob Dylan Link | Folk/Rock | |
| Jerry Garcia | 1942-1995 | ||
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Pitcher | ||
| Famed leader of the Grateful Dead, the penultimate psychedelic band. Garcia, who lost a finger as a child, became an accomplished guitar stylist best experienced at a live concert. Troubles with addiction to drugs eventually did him in, and he died unexpectedly of heart failure. | |||
| Cosmic Record | Jerry Garcia Link | Rock | |
| Dizzy Gillespie | 1917-199X | ||
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Shortstop | ||
| Superb jazz trumpeter and composer and a creator of the modern jazz movement. With Charlie "Bird" Parker, Gillespie was instrumental in the development of the jazz form known as "bebop." | |||
| Cosmic Record | Gillespie Link | Jazz | |
| Woody Guthrie | 1912-1967 | ||
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Pitcher | ||
| Woodrow Wilson Guthrie was a protest singer. Born in Oklahoma, he left home as a teenager and during the Depression he worked in a California radio station playing and singing songs about crop failures and hard times and outlaws. Guthrie, like his colleague Pete Seeger wrote and sang about the people who ended up on the outside of society. He performed for migrant workers and other laborers being victimized by the capitalist power structure in America. | |||
| Cosmic Record | Woody Guthrie Link | Folk | |
| Mickey Hart | 20th C. | ||
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Centerfield | ||
| Drummer for the Grateful Dead (also see Jerry Garcia). Hart is also a musicologist and has collected a wide range of ethnic music. He has been to Washington, D.C. to testify before the American Congress about the need for music preservation. | |||
| Cosmic Record | Mickey Hart Link | Rock | |
| Jascha Heifetz | 1901-1987 | ||
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Secondbase | ||
| Violinist who first performed at the age of six and toured Europe at age 12. Considered one of the centuries most gifted violinists he left his native Russia in 1917 and became a United States citizen in 1925. The International Dictionary of 20th Century Biography writes that Heifetz's "digital dexterity and the strength of his bow arm were legendary, and during 60 years on the international concert circuit he set the standard for flawless execution." | |||
| Cosmic Record | Heifetz Link | Violinist | |
| Elton John | b. 1947 | ||
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Catcher | ||
| His real name is Reginald Dwight but sometime in 1966 he changed it to honor the inspiration he received from Long John Baldry (a white musician turned on by black blues) and Elton Dean a blues saxophone player. In 1974 Elton John signed a five-album deal with a record company worth an estimated $8 million. At the time, this was the most lucrative record contract in the history of Rock and Roll. | |||
| Cosmic Record | Elton John Link | Rock | |
| Gustav Mahler | 1860-1911 | ||
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Pitcher | ||
| Austrian composer and conductor, Mahler was head of the Vienna Imperial Opera (1897-1907), wrote ten symphonies (the tenth is incomplete) and numerous song cycles. Mahler was the stereotypical conductor, considered difficult and exacting, demanding perfection from his musicians. | |||
| Cosmic Record | Mahler Link | Conductor | |
| John Mayall | b. 1934 | ||
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Pitcher | ||
| In Lillian Roxon's 1969 Rock Encyclopedia she writes of John Mayall:
"There is probably no more prestigious position in the world of rock than the one John Mayall has taken-- the position of doing things for art instead of money. In an industry in which the fast buck is, to say the least, much respected and the position of a record on the chart is taken into consideration far too often by people who should know better, John Mayall is an almost holy figure." | |||
| Cosmic Record | Mayall Link | Blues | |
| Charlie Mingus | 1922-1979 | ||
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Pitcher | ||
| Mingus was instrumental in the introduction of the bass as a solo instrument in jazz. In the 1940s Mingus played with Louis Armstrong and Lionel Hampton in Los Angeles. In the 1950s, in New York he played with Miles Davis, Charlie "Bird" Parker, Duke Ellington and Thelonius Monk. Known as the "angry man of jazz" he was vocal about his disgust at racial injustice he thought was prevalent in the American culture, both inside and outside of the music industry. | |||
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Mingus Link | Jazz | |
| Jim Morrison | 1943-1971 | ||
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Outfield | ||
| The "Lizard King" leader of The Doors, a leading rock group in the 1960s. Son of a conservative U.S. Navy officer, Morrison rebelled against his family and its middle-class roots. The Doors were formed in early 1967 and despite lyrics about bloody reptiles they became one of America's most popular groups. A Life Magazine article in 1968 referred to Morrison as "moody, temperamental, enchanted in the mind and extremely stoned." Morrison died unexpectedly on June 3, 1971 in a bathtub in Paris, France. Apparently he had spent the last three months of his life writing poetry and taking drugs. (Nearly three years later, Morrison's widow, Pamela died from a heroin overdose.) | |||
| Cosmic Record | Jim Morrison Link | Rock | |
| Van Morrison | b. 1945 | ||
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Infield | ||
| Van Morrison was the first lead singer of Them, one of the few early Irish rock and roll bands that got started in 1963. He wrote the hit song "Gloria", which rivals "Louie, Louie" in adolescent popularity. In 1967 Morrison went solo with his August 5 release of the single "Brown Eyed Girl." | |||
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Van Morrison Link | Rock | |
| Laura Nyro | 1947-1997 | ||
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Pitcher | ||
| She was a talented singer/writer who wrote the hit song "Stoned Soul Picnic" for the Fifth Dimension. As a young white New Yorker she somehow sang like a wise old black woman from Mississippi. | |||
| Rookie | Nyro Link | Soul | |
| Charlie "Bird" Parker | 1920-1955 | ||
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Pitcher | ||
| One of the greatest alto saxophonists of all time and a master improviser, Parker paid the price to his muse. Shortly after his last public appearance in New York in the theater named after him, Birdland, Parker, beset by emotional problems and physical addiction, died, he was just 35. | |||
| Cosmic Record | Parker Link | Jazz | |
| Jean-Luc Ponty | b. 1942 | ||
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Catcher | ||
| French-born violinist who became popular in the United States through his connection with the American composer/rock guitarist Frank Zappa. | |||
| Cosmic Record | Ponty Link | Rock | |
| Pete Seeger | b. 1919 | ||
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Pitcher | ||
| Born into a wealthy New England family, Seeger rejected that life when he dropped out of Harvard College in 1938 and joined the Young Communist League. Like his comrade Woody Guthrie Seeger sang folk songs to workers groups and became active in political organizing. In 1961 he wrote the classic anti-war ballad "Where Have All the Flowers Gone?" | |||
| Cosmic Record | Seeger Link | Folk | |
| Paul Simon | b. 1941 | ||
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Pitcher | ||
| In 1986 after a long career of writing songs and getting together with ex-partner Art Garfunkel, Simon released his album Graceland. Ignoring the politically-inspired boycott of South Africa, Simon went to Johannesburg and recorded with various black vocal and instrumental groups. The album went to number three on the charts and Simon won the Grammy Award for Album of the Year. He also helped launch the career of Ladysmith Black Mambazo, a vocal group. Their first album Shaka Zulu co-produced by Simon was a hit in the U.S. and Britain. | |||
| Cosmic Record | Paul Simon Link | Rock | |
| Virgil Thomson | 1896-1989 | ||
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Infield | ||
| An American composer whose music evokes the American Midwest, Thomson frequently incorporated folk hymns and ballads into his compositions. He won the 1949 Pulitzer Prize for the music score to the film Louisiana Story. | |||
| Cosmic Record | Virgil Thomson Link | Classical | |
| Don Van Vliet | 20th C. | ||
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Infield | ||
| Also known as Captain Beefheart, Van Vliet played with Frank Zappa in their early high desert days in California. An eclectic musician, his appeal has always been somewhat limited despite a comeback try in 1978 with the album Shiny Beast (Bat Chain Puller) which failed to chart. | |||
| Cosmic Record | Van Vliet Link | Rock | |
| Elie Yarden | 20th C. | ||
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Pitcher | ||
| Composer and music educator, Yarden has been teaching in the Bard College music department for many years. | |||
| Cosmic Record | No Yarden Link | Avant-Garde | |
| Neil Young | b. 1945 | ||
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Outfield | ||
| Neil Young has endured. His live debut performance with Crosby, Stills and Nash occurred at the Fillmore East concert hall on July 25, 1969. Tension and disputes eventually broke the group up and after throat surgery in 1975 he toured with Steve Stills. In 1979 the Village Voice newspaper named Young "Artist of the Decade." In 1988, responding to the rampant and vapid commercialism of the industry he released his controversial single called "This Note's for You." Initially banned on MTV, the following year the television music video show named it the "Best Video of the Year." | |||
| Cosmic Record | Neil Young Link | Rock | |
| Janis Joplin | 1943-1970 | |
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Field Manager | |
| She was the hit of the 1967 Monterey Rock Festival as the lead singer for the San Francisco-based band Big Brother and the Holding Company. She was also another casualty of the decade: she died of a heroin overdose at the age of 27. | ||
| Cosmic Record | Joplin Link | Rock Singer |
| Paul Anka | 20th C. | ||
 |
Coach | ||
| Paul Anka became a millionaire while still a teenager with the success of his hit song "Diana" (1962). Apparently he wrote the tune when he was 15 and it's a tale of undying teenage love. The object of Anka's affections was the 20-year-old Diana Ayoub who used to babysit for his family. | |||
| No Cosmic Record | Paul Anka Link | Pop | |
| Aretha Franklin | b. 1942 | ||
 |
Coach | ||
| The Queen of Soul was the daughter of a Detroit minister. She grew up singing gospel songs at revival meetings. Despite making an initial recording in 1954, it wasn't until the 1960s that she became popular. In 1967 her rendition of Otis Redding's "Respect" landed on top of the charts for two weeks. In 1968 she had four singles that sold more than a million copies and two gold albums. | |||
| No Playing Record | Aretha Franklin Link | Soul | |
| Joni Mitchell | 20th C. | ||
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Coach | ||
| Before her debut album in March 1968, Mitchell had written songs that everyone else was singing. Songs like "Both Sides Now" and "Urge for Going" were successful hits for other singers like Judy Collins, Tom Rush and Dave Van Ronk. | |||
| No Playing Record | Mitchell Link | Folk | |
| Wolfman Jack | 20th C | ||
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General Manager | ||
| Noted disc jockey who did much to bring rock and roll music to several generations of teenagers in America. | |||
| No Playing Record | Wolfman Jack Link | Disc Jockey | |
| Euterpe | Muse | ||
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Team Owner | ||
| The Muse of music. The Muses are the keepers of artistic inspiration. They appear in the Homeric hymns, Aeschylus introduces them in his Prometheus, a poem by Bacchylides invokes them and so does Apuleius in his story Cupid and Psyche. | |||
| No Playing Record | Euterpe Link | Mythology | |
| Orpheum Park | 33,120 seats | |
| Home field | ||
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