Warning! The following contains spoilers from The Masked Singer’s Thanksgiving episode. Stream it with a Hulu subscription and read at your own risk!
The Masked Singer has delivered some shocking reveals in its run, but we don’t talk as often about the people unmasked we’re shocked to learn can sing. I was stunned when MLB World Series champion Bronson Arroyo was unmasked as Sherlock Hound, and not just because I had watched The Comeback: 2004 Red Sox with my Netflix subscription. It’s always a surprise to see athletes on the show, and Arroyo told CinemaBlend it’s not uncommon to get that reaction.
I had the opportunity to speak to Bronson Arroyo ahead of the airing of his elimination on The Masked Singer. During our conversation, I mentioned other contestants who were pro athletes and trying to break into the music world, like former NBA star Victor Oladipo. I wanted his take on whether it was easier or harder to break into music when people already know you as an elite athlete, and his response was interesting:
I think it could be a little tougher, to be honest. I’ve probably played hundreds of shows over the last 20 years, whether they were by myself with an acoustic guitar or with a full band. What you generally find is that people will say, ‘Hey, I came out because my buddy said the band was pretty good, and I didn’t know what I would get from a baseball player, but I showed up, and you guys sound great!’ And so there’s always this bit of doubt about someone who’s done something else at a high level that you could really pull it off.
I’ll admit, it’s a bias that I only realized I had after hearing Bronson Arroyo talk about it. In fairness, I’m sure many people love to hear Taylor Swift sing but would take her hypothetical endeavor to play professional football with her boyfriend, Travis Kelce, far less seriously. For some reason, it’s hard to accept mentally that someone can be great at multiple things if they’ve shown they’re great at one thing on an elite level.
The good news is, that kind of attitude doesn’t bug Bronson Arroyo. He explained the upside of going to play shows with a crowd that may not expect you to perform simply because you used to be a baseball pitcher:
I kind of enjoy it because I think in a lot of ways people underestimate you a little bit and, if you can get out there and give people a two hour performance, and really sing some songs that are tough to do–most of the time around Cincinnati, if I’m playing with the cover band, we’re doing ‘Even Flow’ and ‘Once’ by Pearl Jam and you’re singing Lithium by Nirvana and those songs are not easy to sing. And so, after a couple of hours of that, you at least earn their respect, and hopefully they’ll come back to the show again.
As Sherlock Hound, Bronson Arroyo showed he had those rocker chops. While I was a bit bummed