HARTFORD, Conn. — Meat Loaf had a lot of nutmeg in him. The singer and actor, whose death at age 74 was announced Friday morning on Facebook, lived for years in southern Connecticut, including Stamford, Fairfield, Westport, and Redding.
Meat Loaf, who was born Marvin Lee Aday, but later changed his first name to Michael, didn’t just keep a mailing address in Connecticut, he raised two daughters here for parts of those lives. He was also an active part of his communities, albeit a conspicuous, bombastic one.
He played concerts in Connecticut, in venues big and small, but his community involvement was mainly through his other love – sports. Meat Loaf reportedly especially loved baseball and softball, and according to an article by Sports Illustrated, he sponsored a Little League team in Stamford in 1981. The team that was named “Meat Loaf.”
He also coached a different team in that league, and according to the Associated Press, made history by drafting the first girl to play in a Stamford Little League team. He reportedly said he made it a point to draft her with his first pick.
The Associated Press reported Meat Loaf coached a girls’ Pony League softball team in Westport in 1990, and then the following year, after moving to Redding, he stepped in to coach his daughter Pearl’s softball team at Joel Barlow High School when no one else would.
He told Sports Illustrated that only got to coach three games that first year, because he was also recording his album “Bat Out Of Hell II: Back Into Hell,” and getting ready to appear in three movies, but we got some good stories from that time.
Jen Carlson, a writer for the website Gothamist, was on that team, and in 2011, she wrote an article about it for the website Deadspin.
In the article, Carlson wrote that Meat Loaf was intense, but protective of his players. She wrote that he passed his love and passion for the game onto them, teaching them a chant encouraging them to kill their opponents - metaphorically, of course.
"When we prodded him to sing us one of his hits, we were denied. Instead, he taught us a team chant: 'What do we wanna do? Kill! What do we need to do? Kill! What are we gonna do? Kill! What do big dogs do? KILL!'," Carlson wrote.
Carlson wrote that Meat Loaf downplayed his celebrity, once growling at a reporter who came to do a story on his coaching and was brazen enough to walk on the field during practice. Carlson wrote that he steadfastly refused to sing for the team, except for one time, after their first win, against Abbott Tech. Carlson wrote that he sang “I Would Do Anything For Love (But I Won’t Do That)” on the team bus, a full two years before the song was released to the public in 1993.
Carlson wrote that “Coach Meat,” as they called him, left for Los Angeles, but vowed to return the following season, and did, even running laps alongside the players.
Tim Lammers is an anchor at FOX61 News. He can be reached at Tlammers@fox61.com. Follow him on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
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