Robbed Hit of the Week 4/21/14 - John Fogerty's "Centerfield"...

John Fogerty - "Centerfield"
from the album Centerfield (1985)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #44

This week's springtime "robbed hit" comes from John Fogerty, who finally got back on track after leaving the classic rock band Creedence Clearwater Revival when he released his 1985 album Centerfield, which gave him a #1 album as well as a top-10 pop single with "The Old Man Down The Road" and a top-20 follow-up with "Rock and Roll Girls". For his third single John released the title track from the album, a baseball "comeback" analogy that shows he may have taken notes from Bruce Springsteen's Born In The USA album, as well as name-checking Chuck Berry's "brown-eyed handsome man" from "Johnny B Goode"...

While "Centerfield" became the third straight top-5 single on Billboard's Mainstream Rock radio chart, it surprisingly stalled right under the top-40 on the pop chart. Perhaps a combo of fans already having the album and pop radio swaying from old-school rock (save for Springsteen) kept it from the top-40, but its timeless sound and yearly subject matter interest make it probably the best known of the songs from the album in the long run.

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Here's John playing live (with Jerry Garcia in the back) at the "game"...

...and again in 2004 with "The Boss"...

...and yet again in 2005...

...and finally, John with country singer Keith Urban...