“Call me Mr. Moore Baseball”
Someone out there who loves epic baseball games also loves Brad Paisley.
“I’d like to be called Mr. Moore Baseball,” the country star says. diversethe day after singing the national anthem in a World Series game that reached the record-breaking eighteenth inning. “If you want more baseball, I’m your man.”
This does not mean that this was an isolated event. The last time a World Series game reached the 18th round, in 2018, Paisley also happened to be singing “The Star-Spangled Banner.” In fact, all four times he sang the anthem before a Series game, it went to extra innings, though not always as radically as those two instances.
Some scoffers have wondered if this is the “Brad Paisley Curse,” but most baseball fans would likely qualify it as something like the “Brad Paisley Blessing.” Rather than getting bored with the drawn-out showdown, many agreed with the sportscasters who described Monday’s game as one of the most exciting in the history of sports, although (perhaps) especially Although) it took almost seven hours.
Many people have credited him as the magic that made this possible again, and he would like to expose himself to more crowd-pleasing opportunities to get into a game of two for the price of one.
“I’m also available to play football,” Paisley points out. “I would like to see that extended to more quadrants as well.”
Beasley was interviewed by MLB before his performance and was asked, as a joke, if he could expect something similar to happen as it did in 2018. But he shrugged it off.
“It’s statistically impossible. I don’t understand,” the country star says. “I was like, ‘I just want to get the words right.’ I had no idea there were going to be such big cosmic ramifications.”
Another coincidence is that his birthday is on Tuesday. “Here’s the fun fact: On the East Coast, they won this on my birthday. They almost won it on my birthday on the West Coast. If they win tonight, I’ll have two wins on my birthday. Wouldn’t that be nice? That’s all I want. I can’t think of anything weird, first of all,” of the Dodgers winning twice on their big day without a doubleheader.
He won’t really get any credit for Monday’s apparent coincidence. “I definitely don’t think it’s about me,” says Dodgers megafan. “I started wondering what we were going for in the ninth inning. And I said to myself: ‘Oh my God, let’s win this now.’ And then I thought: ‘Okay, please God, let’s win this now in the 10th.’ And last year, it was the 11th with Freddie Freeman, and that was a grand slam, so I said: ‘That would be good.’ Let’s do it. Yeah, that would be Fun statistics — do it twice!’ Nope. And then it was like, oh no… but it was one of the best baseball games ever. I mean, the defense that both teams showed, the way they kept it tied, and then the shooting… I don’t even know what we just saw. It was truly one of the most grueling sporting events you will ever see. Anyone on the fence about what it means to be a baseball fan…
“Last night when that was happening, I had the exact same feeling when I was waiting for that in 2018. Only in every inning, one pitcher was absolutely outplaying the other, and then some close calls and then, I mean, none of us could believe what we were seeing, and I thought, who’s going to finish this? And then all of a sudden, Freddie comes in, and he’s also a poet. He’s done it two years in a row. It’s crazy.”
Beasley is a friend of the Dodgers, literally, the closest thing to a legendary pitcher who entered the game for just one out, at a point where the bases were loaded, with a serious threat to see the Blue Jays finish off the home team and change the momentum of the Series.
“My favorite moment was with my good friend Clayton Kershaw, who is my favorite player ever, and not just because we’re friends. I think he’s the perfect baseball player for our generation,” Beasley says. “And for him to go out there…I couldn’t believe the situation he was asked to do last night. Never in history has that happened, where he went to an extra inning, ever, and then went in an extra inning with the bases loaded and didn’t give up. To me, that’s the beautiful thing about this game. They cut to Ellen, his wife, in the stands, and she’s crying when he gets that.” Beasley spoke to him before the game. “He said that last night. He said, ‘Four more games at most, then I’m done.’ And it’s like, whoa. And then, to see that play, it’s like Brad Pitt said in the movie Moneyball: ‘How can you not be romantic about baseball?’
Some thought this was a risky move on the part of head coach Dave Roberts that could have made fans feel sorry for Kershaw who was on the verge of retirement if things did not go his way. “That’s the biggest thing on Dave’s mind,” Beasley says. “He must have really felt that was the best shot at that moment. He needed that, and he needed it from someone who wasn’t going to give up. Clayton is the fiercest competitor you could ever meet. In Dave’s case, they’re very conscious of the fact that his legacy has to be one of his entire tremendous, amazing career representing this huge accomplishment. And you don’t want that footnote at the end (if the winning runs are hit on Kershaw, witness. I was really praying at that moment, but it worked. I think this was meant to be somehow.
Paisley talks about the slow evolution of his relationship with the Dodgers before he became known as one of the most reliable musical faces in Chavez Ravine.
“It goes back to when Kim (actress Kimberly Williams Paisley) and I got married in 2003 and started living there part-time in Santa Monica. We bought our first house, which was in Palisades, which is one of my houses that burned down (this year). I don’t own it anymore, but it’s a tragedy; it was a beautiful old place, built in 1922, and the first house we ever bought together.” Just like everything else in that area. He’s gone. But around that time, my kids were starting to get to the age where they needed to go to baseball games. I mean, this is a rite of passage. So I started to fall in love with the Dodgers as a team and got to know guys like Clayton and Justin Turner, and I became good friends with Dave Roberts and Andrew Friedman and those guys. It also helps that Nashville doesn’t have any Something like that, other than votes, who are not competing in that category. “But it’s a really great organization and I love the sport.”
Brad Paisley, Jason Bateman and Sean Hayes pose for a photo before Game 3 of the 2025 World Series presented by Capital One between the Toronto Blue Jays and Los Angeles Dodgers at Dodger Stadium on Monday, October 27, 2025 in Los Angeles, California.
MLB images via Getty Images
He didn’t grow up obsessed with the game. “I grew up watching half a baseball game. In the years when the Pirates were good when I was growing up, my dad for some reason was a Cleveland Indians fan, instead of a Pirates fan, maybe his dad. But we didn’t go to many games or anything like that and I wasn’t interested in that.”
When he was asked to perform his first rendition of the Dodgers’ national anthem in 2000, he planted a seed. “The first anthem was interesting. It was the middle of the day, a hot sun game in Los Angeles, and you’re singing and they give you the T-shirt and the tickets, and you had a hot dog and they call it an achievement.” But in the end it had to be personal, not just a concert, with Paisley.
“One of the most memorable moments I’ve ever done was what they called Opening Day 2.0, I think — Opening Day where fans are allowed back in ’21, after that whole year where we were just sitting on cardboard cutouts in the stands there. I sang that day and it was really emotional — I mean, I felt like the world was right when people were allowed to watch that game again.” Personally. I loved it. It was hard to get past that song; “It felt like a cathartic thing.”
Brad Paisley, Kimberly Williams-Paisley, Elaine Kershaw and Clayton Kershaw attend Clayton Kershaw’s 7th Annual Ping Pong 4 at Dodger Stadium on August 8, 2019 in Los Angeles, California.
Getty Images
Now, “I guess if you want more baseball, call me. I’d like to think it’s a blessing, that my team won; I think it’d be a curse if the song went on too long every time I sang it.” and The team I was rooting for lost. “But I like to be part of the tradition,” he says. “Because I’ll never swing or be anywhere near the real sport itself, and then, to see these articles today” on sports websites and in other news stories, “it’s a lot of fun to read references that are like, ‘Did you know he did this and this and this?’ It’s really amazing to be mentioned in the context of some baseball statistics, for a guy who loves the sport…
“It is my only historical contribution to humanity,” he decides cheerfully.
Next up for Paisley is his soon-to-be-released Christmas album, “Snow Globe Town” — and it’s hard to think about that being the joy of Christmas at night when the boys of summer are still enjoying it under the Los Angeles sun. But he’s ready for this transition, with or without a hot holiday collection to be promoted soon. “That’s why I turned on Hallmark in November. Well, I do. It’s like, ‘Let’s leave this channel open for the next couple of months.'”
Naturally, Beasley will still attend Game 4 on Tuesday. From the stands. “Whatever happened tonight is not my fault,” he says.