We already knew that rocker Joan Jett is a big fan of the Baltimore Orioles; a couple years ago, she wrote the team a fan letter, informing them that she’d even snuck peeks at scores while on stage. But we didn’t really know just how big of a fan Jett was… until now.
According to a recent interview with Billboard, Jett has been a self-described “Orioles freak” since the late 1960s. Here’s how she explains the origins of her fandom:
We used to live in Maryland and my dad took us to see the Baltimore Orioles several times. But my first game was Jim Palmer against Catfish Hunter of the Oakland A’s. Jim Palmer threw a no-hitter. So how can you not be an Orioles freak after seeing that for the first game? It was the team with Brooks Robinson, Frank Robinson and the 4 20-game winners. It was quite a learning experience at the time.
Here’s how she’s put that fandom into practice in recent decades:
+She’s sung the national anthem before O’s games “six or seven times.”
+She hung out on the field during batting practice in the 1980s–during Cal Ripken, Jr.’s first game.
+She went to “fantasy week” — essentially baseball camp for grownups– in 1992, where she learned to throw a screwball. “There were 105 people and 5 women including me,” she says.
Read the rest of Jett’s interview–which includes her predictions for the upcoming season–here.
If I’m not mistaken, Joan is wearing an Orioles Tshirt underneath her blazer on the cover of the ‘I Love Rock n Roll’ album.