Somebody up there who likes epic baseball games also likes Brad Paisley.
“I would like to be called Mr. More Baseball,” the country star tells Variety, the day after singing the National Anthem at a World Series game that went to a record-tying 18th inning. “If you’d like more baseball, I’m your guy.”
It’s not that this was an isolated occurrence. The previous time a World Series game went to an 18th inning, back in 2018, Paisley also happened to be singing “The Star-Spangled Banner.” In fact, all four times he has sung the anthem before a Series game, it has gone into extra innings, although not always as radically as these two instances.
A few wags have wondered if this is “the Brad Paisley curse,” but most baseball fans would be more likely to qualify as something like “the Brad Paisley blessing.” Rather than become bored by the lengthy standoff, many were agreeing with the sportcasters who called Monday’s game one of the most thrilling in the history of the sport, even though (maybe especially though) it went to almost seven hours.
So many people have credited him as the charm that made that possible again, he’d like to put himself up for more such possibly crowd-pleasing opportunities to usher in a two-for-the-price-of-one game.
“I’m available also for football,” Paisley points out. “I’d like to see that go into more quarters, as well.”
Paisley did an interview for an MLB program before his performance and was asked, presumably jokingly, if he could foresee something similar happening as went down in 2018. He brushed it off.
“It’s statistically impossible. I don’t understand,” says the country star. “I was like, I just want to get the words right. I had no idea that there would be major cosmic ramifications.”
As another point of coincidence, his birthday is 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 get two wins on my birthday. Wouldn’t that be nice? That’s all I want. I can’t think of anything stranger, first of all,” than the Dodgers winning two on his big day without there being a double-header.
He won’t really take any credit for Monday’s seeming serendipity. “I definitely don’t think it had anything to do with me,” the Dodgers megafan says. “I did start to wonder what we were headed for in the ninth. I was like, ‘Please God, let’s win this now.’ And then I thought, ‘Okay, please God, let’s win this now in the 10th.’ And then last year the walk-off was in the 11th with Freddy Freeman, and that was a grand slam, and I’m like, ‘That’d be fine. Let’s do that. Yeah, that’d be a fun stat — do that twice!’ Nope. And then it was like, oh no… But it was one of the best-played baseball games of all time. I mean, the defense that both teams showed, the way they kept the score tied, and then the pitching… I just don’t even know what we just watched. It really was one of the most exhausting sporting events that you could ever see. Anybody who’s on the fence about what it’s like to be a baseball fan…”
“Last night when that was happening, it was the same exact feeling when I was waiting on that in 2018. Just every inning, a pitcher just absolutely out-dueling 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 gonna end this? And then all of a sudden, here comes Freddy, which is also poetic. He did it two years in a row. It’s crazy.”
Paisley is a friend of the Dodgers, literally, and is closest to the legendary pitcher who came into the game for just one out, at a point when the bases were loaded, with a serious threat to see the Blue Jays finish the home team off and change the momentum of the series.
“My favorite moment was with my dear friend Clayton Kershaw, who’s my favorite player of all time, and not just because we’re friends. I think he’s the exemplary baseball player of our generation,” Paisley says. “And for him to go in there… I couldn’t believe the situation he was asked to perform in last night. Never in history, going in an extra inning, ever, and then goes in an extra inning with bases loaded and doesn’t give up. To me, that’s just the beautiful thing about this game. They cut to Ellen, his wife, in the stands, and she’s crying when he gets that.” Paisley had chatted with him before the game. “He said it last night. ‘He’s like, ‘Four more games at most, and then I’m done.’ And it’s like, whoa. And then to see this play out, it’s like Brad Pitt said in ‘Moneyball’: ‘How can you not be romantic about baseball?’”
Some thought that was a risky move on manager Dave Roberts’ part that could have had fans feeling sorry for the nearly-retired Kershaw if things had not gone his way. “That’s foremost on Dave’s mind,” Paisley says. “He must have really, really felt like that was the best shot at that moment. He needed that out, and he needed it from somebody that’s not gonna buckle. Clayton is the fiercest competitor you will ever meet. In the case of Dave, they’re very mindful of the fact that his legacy needs to be one of his entire incredible, massive career being this major accomplishment. And you don’t want that footnote at the end (if winning runs are batted in on Kershaw’s watch). I was really praying at that moment, but it worked out. And I think that somehow that was meant to be.”
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 out there part-time in Santa Monica. We bought our first house, which was in the Palisades, which is one of my houses that burned down (this year). I didn’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, it’s gone. But around that time, my kids started to be of the age where they need to go to baseball games. I mean, that’s a rite of passage. And so I started to fall in love with the Dodgers as a team and got to know guys like Clayton and Justin Turner, and became good friends with Dave Roberts and Andrew Friedman and these folks. It kinda helps, too, that Nashville doesn’t have anything like that, other than the Sounds, who aren’t competing in that category. But it’s a really neat organization and I just love the sport.”
Brad Paisley, Jason Bateman, and Sean Hayes pose for a photo prior to Game Three of the 2025 World Series presented by Capital One between the Toronto Blue Jays and the Los Angeles Dodgers at Dodger Stadium on Monday, October 27, 2025 in Los Angeles, California.
MLB Photos via Getty Images
He didn’t grow up obsessed with the game. “I grew up kind of half-watching baseball. In the years where the Pirates were good when I was growing up, my dad for some reason was a Cleveland Indians fan, instead of the Pirates, probably from his dad. But we just didn’t go to many games or anything like that and I just wasn’t invested.”
When he was asked to do his first performance of the National Anthem for the Dodgers in 2000, it planted a seed. “That first anthem was interesting. It was a middle of the day, hot L.A.-sun-type sun game, and you sing and they give you the jersey and tickets and you have a hot dog and call itan accomplishment.” But eventually it got to be personal, not just a gig, with Paisley.
“One of the more memorable ones I ever did was what they called opening day 2.0, I think — the opening day of fans being allowed back in ‘21, after that whole year of just our cardboard cutouts sitting in the stands over there. I sang that day and that was really emotional — I mean, it just felt like the world was right when people were allowed to watch this game again in person. I loved it. And that one was hard to get through; it felt like a cathartic thing.”
Brad Paisley, Kimberly Williams-Paisley, Ellen Kershaw, and Clayton Kershaw attend Clayton Kershaw’s 7th Annual Ping Pong 4 Purpose at Dodger Stadium on August 8, 2019 in Los Angeles, California.
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Now, “I think if you want more baseball, call me. I would like to think it’s the blessing, being that my team won; I guess it would be a curse if every time I sang it went long and the team I was rooting for lost. But I love being some part” of the lore, he says. “Because look, I’m never gonna swing a bat or be anywhere near the real sport itself, and then, to see these articles today” on sports sites and in other news stories, “there’s so much fun to read mentions that are like, ‘Did you know he did this and this and this?’ It’s really mind-blowing to even be mentioned in the course of some baseball statistic, for a guy who loves the sport…
“It’s my one historic contribution to mankind,” he cheerfully decides.
Next up for Paisley is a Christmas album he’s soon putting out, “Snow Globe Town” — and it’s hard to think about yuletide cheer being night when the boys of summer are still at it in the L.A. sun. But he’s ready for the transition, with or without a rocking holiday collection to soon promote. “That’s why you turn Hallmark on in November. Well, I do. It’s like, ‘Let’s leave this channel on for the next two months.’”
Paisley is sticking around to attend Tuesday’s Game 4, naturally. From the stands. “Whatever happens tonight ain’t my fault,” he says.
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