“F*ck you hippie!”: A baseball brawl led to Chicago’s breakthrough hit
The world feels like it is on tenterhooks, and it was similarly charged as the 1960s came to a close. The world had been hit with a wave of optimism as counterculture revelry seemed to sweep across the globe. But as time had passed, the world was beginning to fight back, and tensions were high as the flower generation began to wilt. Similarly, in 1969, Chicago needed to unwind.
After an exhausting tour opening for Jimi Hendrix, the band needed an afternoon away from the pressure of performing alongside one of the most prolific guitarists in the world. Peter Cetera, Walter Parazaider, Danny Seraphine, and Terry Kath headed down to Dodger Stadium to enjoy the LA sunshine and baseball. Instead of having a relaxing afternoon spent basking in a Chicago Cubs victory, the trip resulted in a visit to intensive care, but the hit song it subsequently spawned was a silver lining.
It started innocent enough. Cetera’s favourites, the Chicago Cubs, were set to face the Dodgers in the first of a three-game series, and they won in an absolute landslide, 7-0. The bassist was thrilled with the result, but the victory lap was brief as a Cubs fan in a Dodgers stadium. Cetera ended up brawling with four Marines who seemed to take similar delight in pounding him.
The incident was recalled in the liner notes of the Chicago box set, and far from the baseball loss, it seems Cetera’s hair was the real bone of contention. “Four Marines didn’t like a long-haired rock ‘n’ roller in a baseball park,” Cetera said. “And of course, I was a Cub fan, and I was in Dodger Stadium, and that didn’t do so well”.
As Seraphine told it in Street Player: My Chicago Story, one of the men was irate about the loss and became even more incandescent when he saw Cetera’s shaggy hair. It seems fairly strange for long hair to be a reason for anger in this day and age. But if you have ever had the displeasure of being in a small town after dark, as the booze has swirled and the reasons for living a quiet life dwindle, then you’ll know just about anything, any slight nuance or difference, is worthy of losing a tooth or two over.
Long hair was historically a division between those who were fighting for the counterculture, bastions of hippiedom keen to shake up the world and change the status quo and those looking to maintain it. For swathes of the nation, seeing long hair was like seeing a flag of locks waving in direct opposition to what you believed to be the American way of life. As a young Marine caught a glimpse of Cetera’s mane, things soon became combustible.
There was no time for explanations. This Marine’s rage was at a boiling point, and he needed to let everyone know, Cetera included. After a quick shout of “Fuck you, hippie!” the Chicago bassist was being thrown down the stairs. As horrified baseball fans looked on, Cetera briefly regained his balance, only to be squarely punched in the face.
His jaw was broken in three places, landing him in intensive care for days, and stuck with a wired shut jaw for months. Cetera found that when they cut the wires off, he could only gingerly open his mouth, afraid to have his jaw stuck open again. It changed his entire singing style and had the fortunate side effect of producing one of their best-loved hits, ‘25 or 6 to 4‘.
While in recovery from his jaw injury, Cetera sang the lead on the song. The wire forced him to sing through clenched teeth, which later became his trademark. Reflecting on the situation, producer James Guerico told Mix Magazine it wasn’t a matter of choice. “He had to learn to sing differently,” he said. “I told him, ‘I can’t wait, we’re gonna do this.'”
That fateful trip to the Cubs game hugely impacted Cetera’s life, and the track soared to the top ten of the charts in the US, UK, France, and Canada, quickly becoming a rock staple.
