Late Smash Mouth singer Steve Harwell was die-hard Bay Area sports fan

Smash Mouth’s Steve Harwell died Monday, the band announced. Harwell had struggled with serious health and substance abuse issues, and retired from music after a troubling series of performances in 2021.

“Steve Harwell was a true American Original,” the band said Monday. “A larger than life character who shot up into the sky like a Roman candle. Steve will be remembered for his unwavering focus and impassioned determination to reach the heights of pop stardom.”

Harwell was the voice behind several of the band’s major hits, including 1999’s “All Star.” That one was fitting, as the South Bay native was a fanatical Bay Area sports fan. He and his bandmates used the Smash Mouth X account, formerly Twitter, to share nonstop opinions about the bay’s sports scene and get in occasionally high-profile arguments. 

Then-A’s reliever Sean Doolittle got in on the fun, and the next year, Smash Mouth appeared amid news of Doolittle’s engagement. The band offered to play Doolittle’s wedding after the pitcher announced he was getting married.

“We love them and would do anything for them,” Harwell said of the couple in 2018. “They are some cool people we consider friends.”

Harwell and/or whoever ran the account was not a Draymond Green fan. In 2017, the account told Green to “Shut the F up,” and, “Someone needs to knock your ass out on the court,” after Green berated then-teammate Kevin Durant. (It wasn’t even the most famous instance of Green berating Durant.)

But the band’s loyalty was always to the Warriors. When Green was suspended in the 2016 Finals for his attack on LeBron James’ groin, the account called James a “bitch” and “King Fraud.”

During the 2019 Finals against the Raptors, the account called Drake, a courtside fixture in Toronto, a “glorified mascot,” and told him to “sit the FCK down.”

In 2016, the band’s account aggressively defended former 49ers general manager Trent Baalke: “Baalke is one of the best GM’s in the league point blank. The usage and discipline of players he’s drafted has not worked out.” They supported former Niners QBs Alex Smith and Colin Kaepernick, but couldn’t stand Jim Harbaugh. In the tweetstorm, it sounded like someone in the band had met with Baalke at some point. Later that year, the account defended Baalke again.

In 2020, the band posted a picture of Harwell posing with Steve Young before the Super Bowl.

Last year, the account suggested the 49ers run a three-QB backfield with Jimmy Garoppolo, Trey Lance and Deebo Samuel.

In 2019, the band claimed on their page that the Giants were torn internally about signing Bryce Harper, who ended up with the Phillies. Months later, the account called Harper a money-hungry “jackass.” Perhaps unsurprisingly, the account was not a fan of Farhan Zaidi’s analytically inclined style. Smash Mouth did accurately diagnose after the Harper saga that the Giants badly, badly need a superstar.

But the championship core was not immune to Smash Mouth criticism. “You DON’T announce you’re retiring the season before!” the account tweeted when Bruce Bochy announced his season-long retirement tour in February 2019. “Love him but I might fire him asap! Sorry,…….Stupid ass move.”

The account’s Sharks tweets were more innocuous and less frequent, but they did tweet, “Hey now, you’re an All-Star” at the team’s four All-Stars in 2017.