Barry Zito revealed as contestant on ‘The Masked Singer’

Barry Zito is most famous for being a baseball player, but he’s also a musician. One of the storylines around his 2015 comeback with the Oakland A’s was that he got to play most of the year for their Triple-A club in Nashville, one of the nation’s top hubs for music. In 2017 he released his first EP, No Secrets, featuring six original songs that he either wrote or co-wrote.

Zito’s musical career took a big step into the spotlight on Wednesday, when he was revealed as a contestant on the Fox TV show, The Masked Singer. Here’s the premise of the show, which is in its third season (via Wiki):

During the season, eighteen celebrities will compete anonymously in new full-bodied costumes and masks. Before each performance, a video package will tease clues to their identity with the celebrity narrating aspects of their biography in a disguised voice. After each performs in their own voice, the panelists will attempt to guess who is the masked singer. The contestants are then voted on by the audience to see who is safe and continues, or who will compete in a further round of singing in that episode, and possibly elimination.

One of the clues packages for Zito, followed by one of his performances:

And another clues package for Zito:

Click here to see more of his performances

The season began in February and is nearing its conclusion. Zito was one of four contestants remaining out of the original group of 18, competing for three spots on the finale episode next week. Along the way a couple of fellow athletes have been unmasked, including skateboarder Tony Hawk (disguised as an elephant, which would surely have been too on-the-nose for a former Oakland A’s player) and NFL star Rob Gronkowski (white tiger).

Zito’s number finally came up on Wednesday, which also happened to be his 42nd birthday. The big reveal:

Two of the panelists guessed correctly: comedian Ken Jeong, and model Jenny McCarthy. Other guesses included Trace Adkins, Jason Aldean, and Blake Shelton, but presumably Zito doesn’t mind being confused with a few platinum-selling country stars.

Congrats to Zito on his impressive performance on the show! The lefty rode his hypnotic curveball to three All-Star teams, a Cy Young award with the A’s in 2002, and a couple rings with another team, so he’s no stranger to success. Now it appears he’s well on the way to another productive career in his new industry.

For more of Zito’s music, here he is performing his original song “Secret To Life” (or click here for even more):