Walk-up songs have been a part of baseball games for a very long time and it’s a very good way for players to show who they are and what their interests are. Sometimes, players choose songs that can really get the crowd involved to help bring more energy to the crowd. In honor of the MLB season starting, I will be discussing the art of the walk-up song and the impact it can make.
Walk-up music has been used for many years and it really started in the 1940’s. According to an article from MLB.com, in the 1940’s teams would hire bands and organ players to come in and play music for them in between innings and batters. For about the next 30 years, things stayed this way for most teams where they would only play music for the National Anthem, ballpark classics like ‘Take Me Out To The Ballgame,’ and music between innings. However, things started to change in the 1970’s
In 1970, the Chicago White Sox hired an organist that went by the name of Nancy Faust. Faust was hired to be the White Sox organ player at every game and she would still play the same songs as teams had played in the past. However, she wasn’t looking to be like all of the organist in the past, she was looking to break boundaries that haven’t been broken before.
According to the article, Faust would bring a radio to every game so she could listen to the broadcasts over the radio to hear everything that was going on. After listening to the play-by-play over the radio for a while, Faust had an idea that would change the atmosphere of baseball games. She got the idea to play music that the players requested to be played whenever they come up to bat. Eventually, she reached out to the play-by-play announcer at the time, Harry Caray, to discuss the idea that she thought of.
During their conversation, Caray gave a suggestion to Faust to reach out to some of the White Sox players to see what songs they would like for Faust to play for them. Once Faust started to play music for players during the game, other teams started to follow in the White Sox steps and decided to hire people to play music. As time has gone on and as technology has improved , it has become normalized for teams to have dj’s play music before and during games. Today, there are plenty of examples of players choosing their favorite songs to be played, or to have a song that really gets the fans more engaged.
One example of a player choosing a song that gets the fans engaged is when former Seattle Mariner and Current Atlanta Brave Jarred Kelenic had has walk-up song be ‘Take Me Home, Country Roads’ by John Denver. Kelenic had this as his walk-up song last season and it really helped rally fans together to sing along whenever he came up to bat. According to Mariners reporter Jen Mueller, Kelenic chose that song because “he just likes the song” and “it’s a song everyone likes to sing.” Whenever the song came on, people would sing along and this helped rally both the fans and the team in the middle of the season.
Another example of a walk-up or walkout song is when pitchers choose their music for when they enter the game, one example of this is when Mariano Rivera would enter the game to Metallica’s ‘Enter Sandman.’ Whenever Rivera would enter the game, this song would play and it would get everyone fired up. Mariano Rivera is one of the best relief pitchers in MLB history and this introduction would always portray that. This is one of the most iconic walkout songs of all time due to the energy it brings and because it’s tied to an iconic band and one of the greatest relief pitchers of all time.
One more example of a walk-up/walkout song is when New York Mets closer Edwin Diaz walks out to ‘Narco’ by Timmy Trumpet. This really became a tradition for Diaz during the 2022 season, and when people caught on, it took the baseball world by storm. Whenever Diaz would enter the game to this song, everyone at the games and everyone watching on TV would be engaged with the song and would get excited to see him pitch. This has been regarded as one of the more iconic current walkout songs due to the excitement it brings and how many people pay attention to it.
Walk-up and walkout songs have been a part of baseball games for a long time and it has been a way for players to show who they are and what their interests are. Walk-out songs have a very interesting history behind them and I learned about a lot of stuff while writing this post. I believe that this will continue to be a part of baseball for a while and I think the players enjoy sharing more about themselves this way.
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