Jimmy Collins’ Wake: How a Red Sox Hall of Famer from Buffalo inspired a Dropkick Murphys song

BUFFALO, N.Y. (WIVB) — Baseball, more than any other sport, finds a home within Dropkick Murphys’ music. Frontman Ken Casey in the late-aughts even took over ownership of McGreevy’s pub, formerly the outside-the-park headquarters of the Royal Rooters — the early Boston baseball fan club — known then as the 3rd Base Saloon. He remained owner of the pub until its closure in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The 3rd Base Saloon was opened in 1894 by Michael “Nuf Ced” McGreevy, complete with photos of Boston baseball stars on the walls and chandeliers made from old bats. “It was an honor to be a part of unearthing such an important part of Boston baseball history,” Casey said at the time of the pub’s closing.

Dropkick Murphys multi-instrumentalist and supporting vocalist Tim Brennan in a July interview credited Casey’s diehard Red Sox fandom for the band’s partiality to the sport and the team.

“Ken has always been obsessed with the Red Sox. Always. So that just plays into it a lot,” he said. “And then I think that the Red Sox made a horrible mistake by opening the door to us and letting us come in and do whatever we want whenever we wanted. We would show up there a lot.”

Knowing the band’s notorious affinity for the Red Sox, in addition to the fact that Dropkick Murphys are a Celtic punk band, Sports Museum curator Richard Johnson reached out through rap artist and baseball historian Pete Nash — known in the music community as Pete Nice, of Def Jam golden age trio 3rd Bass — with the lyrics to the song “Jimmy Collins’ Wake.”

Nash had previously told Johnson the story of Collins’ wake, which Johnson took as inspiration.

“Never having written the lyrics to a song before, I said, ‘You know the folks at the Dropkicks, right?’ He said, ‘Yeah,’” Johnson recalled. “I said, ‘You know Ken Casey really well?’ — the leader of the band — he said, ‘Oh, sure.’ I said, ‘Well, I know he’s a baseball fanatic. I’m going to write a song about this. Don’t ask me why I’m even saying this, but I just know in my heart I am going to write the lyrics to a song.’”

Johnson said he went home that night and didn’t think much of it.

“Roughly a year and a half later, I bolted out of bed one morning at about 6 a.m., dashed to my computer, and wrote the lyrics to the song ‘Jimmy Collins’ Wake,’” he said. “I wouldn’t say it came to me in a dream, but it came to me in a sleep-like state.”

Johnson said the band kept the lyrics he wrote, etching his name in music history, not dissimilar to the way Collins’ name was etched on the loving cup he was presented, which is mentioned in the song’s chorus as follows:

“Let’s raise a glass
and lift it up,
then sip from Jimmy Collins’ cup
and hail the lads that won the crown
that brought victory to our Grounds.
Let’s raise a glass
and lift it up,
then sip from Jimmy Collins’ cup
and hail the lads that won the crown
while turning baseball upside down.”

Brennan said he did not know the lore of Collins’ wake prior to the band being approached with the lyrics, noting that he grew up in a predominantly basketball and Notre Dame football family, but said because the band was making semi-frequent appearances at Red Sox games at the time, it made sense for them to take it on.

“We would have, just a few years prior, still been doing things with the Red Sox, like playing the national anthem and things like that,” he said. “It was just still very much in the sort of sphere of everything for us, the Red Sox. So when Ken was approached with these lyrics, I think because it was still something that we were currently doing a lot, it made sense to do that song. And then luckily for us, the lyrics were fairly well written, and so that made it easy to [record]. But yeah, it was: Ken was approached, and in the midst of his Red Sox fever said, ‘Absolutely, let’s do it.’”

The song became the group’s second homage to the Red Sox; the first, their 2004 single, “Tessie,” a cover of Will R. Anderson’s song from 1902 Broadway musical “The Silver Slipper,” to which Red Sox fans have been altering the words since the first World Series. The original rendition is referenced in “Jimmy Collins’ Wake” with the mention of Honus Wagner crying — an allusion to Wagner being upset with the Royal Rooters picking him as the target of their parody, not an implication that Wagner was distraught at the wake.

“Back from the early days of baseball and the Red Sox franchise, there’s a whole lot of cast of characters,” Casey said in a live performance for RadioBDC in December 2012. “This is a song that we wrote musically, and Dick from the New England Sports Museum, actually, a mad [history] buff, he wrote the lyrics about a gentleman by the name of Jimmy Collins, who was kind of one of the first stars of the Red Sox organization.”

With the release of “Tessie” in 2004, the band guaranteed a Red Sox World Series win, despite the team not having won since 1918. Famously, the prediction did come true, with the Sox sweeping the St. Louis Cardinals in four games that season.

“We wrote a song about baseball one other time and it went alright, and we would like to try that again,” Casey added at the RadioBDC appearance. “But we would like to preface that we are making no predictions on this song that it’s going to bring any good luck elements to any sports teams. We’re done with those predictions; we want to retire undefeated.”

Despite Casey not intimating that the song would bring the Red Sox luck, Boston won the World Series the ensuing season anyway.

To read more on the legend of Jimmy Collins, click the links below.

Part I: Buffalo’s Baseball Hall of Famer: The legend of Jimmy Collins
Part III: Growing up in WNY and playing for the Bisons – Publishes Oct. 23 at 8 a.m.
Part IV: The Irish in Boston – Publishes Oct. 24 at 8 a.m.
Part V: Collins’ family and legacy – Publishes Oct. 27 at 8 a.m.