Baseball Songs: Catfish Hunter

Fried Catfish Man.

Jim “Catfish” Hunter was an all-time great pitcher with an all-time great nickname.

CATFISH. Catfish HUNTER.

This was decades before CATFISH means what it means today. This Catfish was a phenomenon around baseball. It’s no wonder he had two songs written about him. One of them by BOB DYLAN!

Catfish cards from 1967, 1973, and a 1980s mock-up.

First the baseball. Here are the Catfish quick hitters.

In 1964, as a North Carolina high School senior, he pitched FIVE no-hitters. 

In June of that year Kansas City Athletics owner Charlie Finley signed him and gave him the nickname, based on a story Finley made up on the spot. In a typical “Fish Story,” the catch is always exaggeratedly larger than reality. The opposite turned out to be true here.

Catfish spent his first summer as a professional baseball player at Finley’s family farm in Iowa, not pitching, but recovering from a shotgun wound to his right foot. In a hunting accident months earlier, he lost a toe, had multiple fractures, and had over 50 pellets surgically removed. He recovered enough to play in the 1964 fall instructional league in Bradenton, FL. 

He made his MLB debut in May of 1965 at 19. Catfish is one of only 23 players to skip the minor leagues entirely.

He was an All-Star in 1966 and 1967.

Pitched a perfect game in 1968, the first year the Athletics played in Oakland.

Won the World Series in 1972, 1973, and 1974.

Won the Cy Young Award in 1974.

Catfish was MLB’s first free agent, winning a contract dispute with Finley after the 1974 season.

It was easily one of the biggest stories in sports that year. Catfish signed the first-ever baseball contract worth more than one million dollars with the Yankees, pitched five more seasons, and won two more World Series rings in 1977 and 1979.

Catfish was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1987. A few weeks later, his hometown of Hertford, NC, erected a 6-foot tall black marble monument in his honor. “Most folks have to die to get one of these,” Hunter was quoted as saying at the dedication ceremony. Is this a sadly ironic quote? You bet. Let’s rock n roll, before going there.

The baseball world had Catfish fever.

“Catfish,” the song, was indeed written by Bob Dylan in 1975. Outside of bootlegs, the track didn’t make the cut of any Dylan releases until a 3-disc retrospective, 20 years later. 

Two versions of Dylan’s “Catfish” came out in 1976. The first was by Joe Cocker, who “doesn’t know much about baseball” and “just dug the fact the Bob gave him the tune,” according to his producer, Rob Fraboni. Cocker had never heard of Catfish before recording the song (see addendum).

So, we’re bypassing Cocker’s pained wailing and going straight to the far-superior Kinky Friedman release, a B-side. (Friedman performed the A-side “Abby” on SNL!)

Friedman was a Texas rabble-rouser, band-leader, satirist, and occasional politician. In the early 1970s, his band Kinky Friedman & His Texas Jewboys found modest success, a record deal, and some famous fans (including Dylan). Friedman was banned from Austin City Limits for performing a cover of “Okie from Muskogee” as “Asshole from El Paso.”

Dylans’s lyrics, Kinky on stage.

For his second album, Kinky cashed in his relationship with Bob Dylan to record “Catfish” and bring in celebrity guest players: Roger McGuinn (The Byrds), Ron Wood (Rolling Stones), Lowell George (Little Feat), Ringo Starr, Eric Clapton, Dr. John, and T-Bone Burnett. Wow. Producer Van Dyke Parks (The Beach Boys’ Smile) transformed Dylan’s original dirge into a greasy Texas funk banger.

You listen to one Bob Dylan Song, “This guy sucks.”

You listen to 200 Bob Dylan Songs, “Saying Bob Dylan is the most important songwriter of the last 100 years is an understatement.”

You listen to 600 Bob Dylan songs, “This guy sucks.”

-Someone on the Internet

I’ve never really gotten to phase two of this meme, but I sure appreciate a songwriter of Dylan’s stature writing lyrics with real baseball acumen: 

Catfish, million-dollar-man,

Nobody can throw the ball like Catfish can.

Reggie Jackson at the plate

Seein' nothin' but the curve,

Swing too early or too late

Got to eat what catfish serve.

Our second track, “The Catfish Kid (The Ballad of Jim Hunter)” has the opposite pedigree. It is the singular single from Big Tom White.

The only biographical information I’ve found is on the back of the 7” single itself.

Two of Catfish Hunters' old high school buddies from Hertford, N.C., Bobby Hollowell and Big Tom White, produce a jumping little country-rock record about him - and Catfish likes it… An article about the song appears in Rolling Stone magazine July 1st, 1976 as news about the record spreads. It is played over the loud speaker at Yankee stadium every time Catfish pitches. Everyone in New York wants a copy of "The Catfish Kid" but a strange twist of fate keeps this from happening… until now.

More of a twanger than a banger, but still a worthy addition to the TTSS Baseball Songs About Individual Players Hall of Very Good.

Front and back of Big Tom White’s single.

Catfish, the man, retired at age 33 to spend more time with his family and to hunt and fish on his farm in North Carolina. His retirement was cut short though. He died at 53 of ALS (Lou Gerhig’s disease) in 1998. He was buried in Cedar Wood Cemetery in Hertford, NC, just behind the field where he had starred as a high-school pitcher. His baseball headstone is one of the most impressive you’ll ever see.

Upon Catfish’s passing, Yankees owner George Steinbrenner said, “Catfish Hunter was the cornerstone of the Yankees’ success over the last quarter-century. We were not winning before Catfish arrived. He exemplified class and dignity and he taught us how to win.”

The man almost has his foot shot clean off. Then he gets an all-time nickname; changes baseball as a free agent; has a Hall of Fame baseball career; wins five World Series rings; fucking Bob Dylan writes a song about him; and Steinbrenner sings his praises. That’s packing a dozen lifetimes into 53 years. My only question is: WHY AREN’T THERE MORE CATFISH HUNTER SONGS?

* * * * * *

ADDENDUM (updated June, 2025)

The missing part of this newsletter is the question of what did Catfish think of these songs.

I tracked down that 1976 issue of Rolling Stone referenced on the back of “The Catfish Kid (The Ballad of Jim Hunter).” Writer Steve Weitzman did the reporting for us.

When asked if he had ever heard of Bob Dylan, Catfish replied, “Nope.” When handed a printed copy of the lyrics, Catfish read them and dropped the page on the floor.

Catfish greatly prefers the Big Tom version, saying, “It’s me. It’s about my home and everything.” And the Bob Dylan lyrics? “It ain’t me cuz (sic) that guy ain’t from my hometown. That’s one reason.”