By Paulo Camacho
Major League Baseball Players like the Giants’ Brandon Crawford use walk-up music to hype them up before a big at-bat. But how did the tradition get started?
The crack of a bat on a 95 mile-per-hour fastball. The familiar drone of the park organ playing “Take Me Out To The Ball Game”. The cheers and boos from the thousands of fans in attendance. The umpire’s call of “out” and “safe”, that somehow sounds exactly the same, despite the thousands of men that have made those calls in the history of the game.
These are the familiar sounds of baseball — from the college ranks to the minors, to the pinnacle of MLB, it is these sounds — a style of “music”, all its own — that evoke familiar images and emotions that are synonymous with America’s Pastime.
But there is another, less obvious sound at the ballpark, or in homes across America watching a major league game, that has helped define baseball and its unique relationship with the realm of music.
And that is the drone of the walk-up song.
Baseball’s modern walk-up song tradition has been around for decades — usually as a way to energize the players, or to signal the crowd when a player would be batting. Most famously demonstrated by 1989’s famous sports comedy Major League — and it’s 1994 sequel, Major League II — it was used to herald the arrival of the game’s closer:
The walk-up song began in an unexpected place — on the fingertips of an organ player. Nancy Faust, a club organist that played for the Chicago White Sox starting in 1970, started the tradition by playing each player’s home state song when they walked up to the plate. When future National Radio Hall of Famer Harry Caray was hired as announcer for the Chicago White Sox, Faust built a rapport with him through song:
At that time the organ was located in the center field bleachers and I remember him making a statement that this game is so slow they’re going to have to carry me back home. When he said ‘carry me back home’ I played ‘Carry Me Back to Old Virginny’ just like that.
Faust’s songs would further evolve as time went on — for example, if she knew a player was dating pop singer Madonna, she would play “Like A Virgin”; if she knew a player was a rookie, she would play The Who’s “Who Are You”.
Meanwhile, in San Diego, the Padres brass would take the idea of walk-up music to a different, more corporate level. Team Senior Sales Executive Chip Bowers overheard a conversation about promoting star closer Trevor Hoffman. Using a walk-up song, so it went, would get fans excited about his entrance. And the song Bowers chose? AC/DC’s “Hell’s Bells”:
Soon after, players chose their own walk-up music. It was one of the only things that truly defined their identity as players, and as people, to the fans in the stands. Former Minnesota Twins outfielder once said that a player’s walk-up music “has to mean something.” Whether the song pumps up the player, pumps up the crowd, or helps define who they are, the walk-up song has become a de facto part of the game.
As a tribute of sorts to the walk-up music that has become part of America’s Pastime, some of the staff at Picardy provided their ideal, hand-picked walk-up music. For example, Content Lead Hermes Camacho went the classical route for his choices. “Either the opening bars to ‘Thus Spoke Zarathustra or the opening to the funeral march in Mahler 5,” he said, citing both pieces’ “epic trumpets”.
Senior Content Developer Alex Newton also went with a classical theme for his walk-up music, despite admitting that he is “pretty bad at baseball” — the opening bars to the Eroica Symphony, by Ludwig Von Beethoven.
Technical Lead Paul Marbach followed suit on the classical music front, when it came to his walk-up music: the epic “O Fortuna” from Carl Orff’s “Carmina Burana”.
As for Marketing Director Cassie Shankman, she couldn’t decide between a couple of modern choices: the driving beat of “Kashmir” by Led Zeppelin:
Or the modern classic that is the theme to “Star Wars: A New Hope”.
Senior Engineer Tucker Bickler, on the other hand, kept it simple with his walk-up song: Steve Miller’s famous tune, “Fly Like an Eagle.”