Walk-up Songs?

SC & 2B,

I too agree whole heartedly. I love the game of baseball, but have to admit that the down time between innings, pitching changes, etc...can be quite boring. I see nothing wrong with "Walk Up" songs, or music during those down times. I however don't condone any music playing that is negative towards the opponent. Keep it fun for the kids, and us parents in the stands!

Honestly, for us it is all about the atmosphere. It does not interfere with hard-nosed baseball, it is not intended to single out any player individually. We do however, only play W/U's at Varsity games.

GED10DaD

It can get out of hand. One of the local schools played a WU song for at least three hitters in their starting line-up that dropped at least three F-bombs each in the few seconds they played it.

We played them again a few weeks later and they no longer played WU songs.

It can be fun if used properly, but wow, Navy vets were blushing...

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Originally posted by 2Bmom:
I was hoping for a little payback this year...I think the only song I'd need is Queen's "Fat Bottomed Girls." Get on your bikes and ride!

A local legion team plays walk-ups for the opponents only. As much as I don't care for walk-up music, these guys crack me up.

They only play a lot of tunes from musicals...that kind of adds to the insult. In my games with them I've heard "I enjoy being a girl", "The Hills are alive with the Sound of Music", "Dance, 10, Looks, 3", "Anything you can do I can do better", "Surrey with a Fringe on Top", "Gonna Wash that Man Right Out of My Hair, and "If I only had a brain".Non-musical tunes included "In the Navy", "Like a Virgin", "My Girl", and "I'm a little Teapot."

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Originally posted by Jimmy03:... "I enjoy being a girl", "The Hills are alive with the Sound of Music", "Dance, 10, Looks, 3", "Anything you can do I can do better", "Surrey with a Fringe on Top", "Gonna Wash that Man Right Out of My Hair, and "If I only had a brain".Non-musical tunes included "In the Navy", "Like a Virgin", "My Girl", and "I'm a little Teapot."

Now that's funny!GED10DaD

I do the announcing for son's small private Baptist school. We do poll the players for their walk up music and usually have to either substitute, cut some out or edit it. I'm behind on this already!

We have dsds from the booster club rotate/volunteer for the PA duties. The walk-up songs are fun (censored prior to airing), loud and reflect the personality of the kids. Only varsity gets this privilage. You hear from all genres. One kids last name is Brickhouse, what do you think he uses for a walk up song?
Mighty, mighty, just lettin' it all hang out!

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Originally posted by DuckinDD:
We have dsds from the booster club rotate/volunteer for the PA duties. The walk-up songs are fun (censored prior to airing), loud and reflect the personality of the kids. Only varsity gets this privilage. You hear from all genres. One kids last name is Brickhouse, what do you think he uses for a walk up song?
Mighty, mighty, just lettin' it all hang out!

That's funny and very true! We have to edit the music prior to allowing the song to be played...The kids have Rock, Hip-Hop, and even Country as their walk ups and the parents love the diversity!

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Originally posted by Jimmy03:

This all resulted in an addition to the game time of 10-15 seconds per batter, or an average of about 7-8 minutes per game when one side used music and about 15 minutes per game when each side used music.

No scientific significance is claimed.

Must have been one hell of a disappointing outcome. To have put two year's energy and research into answering a question with no more than 15 minutes of significance. Especially given that, if you ask most baseball fans, they would probably tell you that they're not in a terrible hurry to wrap-up the the game anyway, and that 7-15 additional minutes are "time well-spent" if the game's more entertaining because of the walk-up music.

These local researchers should go read the story of Cold Fusion. Just about as dumb.

For my son's high school, we talked about the possibility of walkup songs, but came to the conclusion that if it could not be done properly, not to do it at all.

We chose to make a more "comfortable" format that is more in the style and setting of our baseball program. I'll include an example of what we do below:

1 hour of pregame music (usually one of the common themes of country, rock, or mixture of that is fairly family friendly including baseball specific songs).

1) We play the visitors lineup music to the theme of "The Natural".
2) We play during the Umpires meeting at home plate "Back Where I Come From" by Kenny Chesney (since it is the same high school that Kenny graduated from.)
3) We created a two minute audio monologue about the history of the high school baseball team (with background music) that leads into the home team introductions and run out(done to the theme from Air Force One).
4) Play the national anthem (or occasionally have a local singer perfrom).
5) As the home team warms up for the top of the first, we play the bagpipe fight theme from the movie "Braveheart".

As always, we play music in between innings and during any conferences or umpire discussions.

After the game, we play about 20 minutes of music that starts with "Paradise City" and "I'm going home".

Starting this year, we have been asked to start playing before the bottom of the sixth inning "Sweet Caroline" much the same as Boston fans do.

Most of the time, we get compliments from the fans, players, and visiting crowd about how we handle the music and announcing making it more special for everyone involved.

ShowVol, we do a very similar format. I edit all requested WU's, we follow a very strict protocol to make sure we don't offend. We get alot of nice comments about our music. It's very broad and... thanks to guitar hero, the players even recognize some of our older rock stuff from back-in-the day!

We play Sweet Caroline too. GED10DaD

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Most of the time, we get compliments from the fans, players, and visiting crowd about how we handle the music and announcing making it more special for everyone involved.

Showvol ... great win-win approach that "enhances" the atmosphere for everone. Walk-ups can be handled the same way within that frame-up. Our's is never allowed to interfere with the pace of the game. The songs are "approved" by the Coach. We too always get positive approval from the visiting crowd who we very much treat as guests (while we kick their b$$$s).

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heard of another local HS that allows the Seniors to pick first-time varsity player's walk-up for them...get lot's of Madonna, Jonas Brothers, Taylor Swift...

OK, I'm rambling, but thought I'd chime in. The players do like it...

GT

Hillarious!

quote:

Originally posted by GunEmDown10:
ShowVol, we do a very similar format. I edit all requested WU's, we follow a very strict protocol to make sure we don't offend. We get alot of nice comments about our music. It's very broad and... thanks to guitar hero, the players even recognize some of our older rock stuff from back-in-the day!

We play Sweet Caroline too. GED10DaD

Our problem with any walkup songs are:

1) Most of the kids choices in music are questionable at best. One of our rules is that we stay away from rap. Nothing against it but it usually dosen't fit in with the "family" theme.

2) Manpower in the press box. Usually, it is a two man operation doing the book, scoreboard, music, and announcing. Space is not a problem for us as we can put 12-16 comfortably inside, but most of our parents prefer to be on ground level around the concession stand.

3) Our field is fairly tight with minimal foul teritory. With our on deck area so close to the home plate area, there is minimal time for walkup music.

We are fortunate in the fact that we run our music from a laptop. All music is sync'd from 2 portable 16 gig usb memory sticks and played in Windows Media player through an amplifier. That we can have so much more music to choose from and can download more easily if needed.

We have a Parent volunteer to do PA. We're getting walk-up songs this year. I'm leaning towards Burn It To The Ground by Nickleback.

I'm not sure if this would be my son's walk up song.He does listen to "I Can" by Nas on an ipod before his games and even sometimes sneaks it in before an at bat.

I think walkup songs are just to add some fun to the game. It's not important because the GAME itself is what is important.

Not sure what my step-son would like to have played.

I can handle hip hop or rap as long as we just play the clean part of the song. I'm just glad that, so far, none of our players have requested "Honky Tonk Badonkadonk" or "I Played Chicken with a Train"!

My guy uses Linkon Park "Faint". He does not want to be ignored! (if you know the song...)

Maybe it's just me, but I think it disrespectful to play walkup songs for the competitor's team that are "derogatory". It's distracting in a negative way. My son is a pitcher. If a player walks to the batter's box while he is on the mound, he wants that batter to be at his best and totally undistracted. Can't beat the feeling of defeating someone at their best.

About my half my team is fighting over Down With The Sickness by Disturbed when the guy goes OOO-Waha-ha-ha.

What are some of the beter pre game or between inning songs you guys play?

I'd say if it lengthens the game by 10-15 minutes, that's a GOOD thing! It's entertaining and besides, why all the rush to get the game over with? If you don't want to be there then don't go to begin with!
I love being at baseball games and I'm disappointed when it's over so quickly. My sons Summer Coach always says: "SSSllooww the game down...

I love the walk-up songs. Although we had a mother from the opposing team whine about not playing a walk-up song for their players. Hellloooo....its called home-field!!

Can you change walk up songs mid-game?

If you're coming up late in the game with 2 or 3 hits already:

When You're Hot, You're Hot by Jerry Reed

The Kid Is Hot Tonight by Loverboy

.

Here's my choice.




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I don't mind music at a ballgame. It's fine for pre-game, between innings, during delays, but I could really do without the "walk up songs". Call me a fuddy duddy, but I just don't like it.

OK, fuddy duddy

at my son's game when the head coach goes to the mound they play the theme from Final Jeopardy countdown. Funny part of it is the umpires use it to time the coach spends on the mound. Just as the song ends, the ump is heading to the top of the mound.

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Originally posted by Jimmy03:
"Dance, 10, Looks, 3",

Do any of the opponents even know the topic of that song? Yikes!

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at my son's game when the head coach goes to the mound they play the theme from Final Jeopardy countdown.

At our games when the visiting coach visits the mound we play "Precious and few are the Moments we two can share". It always gets giggles from the stands.

quote:

Originally posted by Leftysidearmom:
Maybe it's just me, but I think it disrespectful to play walkup songs for the competitor's team that are "derogatory". It's distracting in a negative way. My son is a pitcher. If a player walks to the batter's box while he is on the mound, he wants that batter to be at his best and totally undistracted. Can't beat the feeling of defeating someone at their best.

I would imagine, especially at the HS level, any walk-up songs are being played for the home team's players only. The older you get, you might see songs being played to poke fun at the other team.

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At our games when the visiting coach visits the mound we play "Precious and few are the Moments we two can share". It always gets giggles from the stands.

I like that! I have some movie quotes that I use. The first one is always "Mind Bottling" from Blades of Glory. Then of course there's the old standby when the whole team is on the mound - the Bull Durham mound scene - with the profanity clipped out, of course!

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Originally posted by cb12:
OK, fuddy duddy

Yeah, I know. Don't get me started on ringtones, either.