When Faye Webster met an MLB all-star
Whether she likes it or not, Faye Webster has now become a strange shared interest of baseball nerds and indie rock geeks. The American singer-songwriter remains one of music’s most exciting upstarts, with three killer albums to her name. But for baseball enthusiasts, Webster’s tracks ‘It Doesn’t Work Like That’ and ‘Dream With a Baseball Player’ have endeared her as a rare breed: a young person who likes the MLB enough to sing about it more than once.
‘It Doesn’t Work Like That’, from Webster’s self-titled debut LP, concerns the sadness of seeing relief pitcher Craig Kimbrel get traded away from Webster’s hometown team, the Atlanta Braves, to the San Diego Padres (as is the nature of relief pitchers, Kimbrel has become a journeyman, logging time seven different teams as of 2023). But it was ‘A Dream With a Baseball Player’, concerning Webster’s crush on Braves All-Star outfielder Ronald Acuña Jr., that established her connection with America’s Pastime.
‘A Dream With a Baseball Player’ both is and isn’t really about Acuña. “It wasn’t like I wanted to write a song about baseball,” Webster told ESPN. “It was like I’m writing about this because this is all I’ve done this year. It just consumed my life, the Braves.” Thanks to having more time on her hands, Webster found herself paying more attention to her hometown team, including following some of the Braves’ star players on social media.
“I feel like what I relate to the most [in music] is the personal shit,” Webster said. “The lyrics that are really honest and personal and there’s almost no privacy barrier. You just know me if you listened to my music because I’m being so out there and I feel like that was Acuña and [Braves second baseman] Ozzie [Albies]. Even just following both of them on Instagram for so long, I literally felt like they were my friends.”
While the song is rooted in Webster’s one-way infatuation with Acuña, she does throw the idea out that she could stop obsessing and make it happen. “I could just meet him and get it over / Or I’ll just keep wearing his name on my shirt”. Thanks to the success of 2021’s I Know I’m Funny Haha, the Braves organisation did wind up reaching out to Webster, offering to set up a brief meeting between Webster, Acuña, and a translator.
“I said nothing to this person about who I was or anything,” Webster said. She wasn’t sure whether Acuña knew that Webster had penned a love song to him or whether he thought she was just another fan. However, just before the two ended their casual chat, Acuña let it slip that he at least had some idea of who Webster was by saying, “Thank you for the music.”
The revelation caused Webster to go into a thought spiral. “What does that even mean?” Webster asked herself. “Who told you something? It was not me. I don’t know what they told you. I don’t know. It was nice.” Slight embarrassment aside, Webster did parley the success of ‘A Dream With a Baseball Player’ into singing ‘Take Me Out To The Ballgame’ at a Braves game in 2019, shortly after the song was first released as a single. Her focus on baseball has given Webster a distinct angle in the world of indie rock as well.
“Nobody planned me talking to ESPN,” Webster said. “It’s kind of refreshing. I’ve been answering the same questions for three months in a row about the songwriting process and what inspired the album. It’s never been, ‘OK, tell me why you like the Braves.’ That’s nice.”
