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Walk-up Songs?

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scdiggerscdigger500+ posts
I do the PA for my son's high school baseball team...yes, I do walk-ups, but for Varsity only, not JV...kind of look at it as a small fringe benefit once you make varsity. I let them request a song or two for walkups (usually they have to be extensively edited to get the right sound-bite)...seniors gets their first choice and on down. If they don't send me their request, I pick something out for them, and they usually give me a request after the first time they hear it...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
Jimmy03Jimmy031,000+ posts
A highly unscientific study conducted locally over the last two seasons indicated that in games in which walk up songs were utilized, batters took longer to begin to walk to the plate then walked slower. Then the umpire had to hold the pitcher off longer to wait for the announcer to turn off the sound.

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.

Again, this was conducted only locally and by umpire evaluators with stop watches at both games with and without walk up songs.

No scientfic significance is claimed.
JMoffJMoff1,000+ posts
Our team did it last year.

Son was a freshman last year and the seniors picked his song, which was "Dancing Queen".

Contrary to Jimmy03's quoted study, during his one official AB, he was actually in the box ready to hit before the pitcher got the ball back from the previous play. PA guy played it anyway, the umpire cracked up, called time and made us all listen to a few seconds before he put the ball in play.

I do agree it generally slows things down, is loud and all the songs sound the same, bad.

And yes, I know I sound like my parents.
T theEH1,000+ posts
I always thought it would be a good Idea to raffle off the walk-out song's to the student body, ( target the girl's ).
And then you would have them coming to your games to listen to your walk-out song, since they picked it out.
Raffle it off every home game. A good fund raiser.
And you just might increase your fan base.

EH
2Bmom2Bmom1,000+ posts
Walk up songs are fun! I wonder if the players even hear them, I'm certain 2B doesn't, but I think they are fun for the crowd. 2Bdad and I are the varsity announcers this year, and we are putting the list together at HSV's request and with help from the players.

YGD - thanks! CJ is a favorite player of mine. I'm going to add that one.
Last edited by 2Bmom
piaa_umppiaa_ump5,000+ posts
quote:
Originally posted by td25:
quote:
Originally posted by SultanofSwat:
HSV coach today: "No walk up songs here. Just fundamental baseball"


Thank you for saying that. Winning teams don't do walk-up songs. They get in the box, concentrate, and hit pi$$missles.


Cant say I disagree, because the most ridiculus thing that can happen is a player waiting to walk up to his music...."let the bodies hit the floor" as I remember, then strike out on 3 straight swings.....
2Bmom2Bmom1,000+ posts
For the past several years, our district rival (and also district champ last year) has played "Dancing Queen," "Teenage Wasteland," "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun," etc., while our guys warmed up. We have not beaten these guys in at least 3 years.

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!

But, alas, we changed districts and don't play them anymore! Frown
Last edited by 2Bmom
T Tooldforthis100+ posts
My sons last game of his senior year in H.S., the coach said they could have walk up song for the last game of the league. I was working the P.A. and we had a kid that when he warmed up on the mound, no one knew where the pitch was going to go. The players would all chime in and sing "wild Thing". So I decided that if he pitched that day I would play Wild Thing on the P.A.. My son had burned some CD's and had the name on the songs on the CD and one said Wild Thing. So the kid comes on the mound and I put in the CD and started the song. Turns out I didn't know that there was two songs called Wild Thing, the one that we all know from Mitch Williams day and another one that some Hip Hop artist sang. Needless to say the words to the song were not the ones I remembered. The kids in the bleachers all got up and started dancing and singing, the adults were kind of shocked.
If I ever do it a P.A. again, I think I'll preview the music.
JMoffJMoff1,000+ posts
2BMom, at least your team had "Dancing Queen" played for them on the road. Jr. had it played for him at home as a freshman...

But he's a sophomore this year, so we're hoping to move up to "Fat Bottomed Girls" which simply put is a pretty good song if you aren't paying close attention to the words.

As a parent, I'd kill for Baba O'Riley (aka "Teen Aged Wasteland"). Or even better, staying with the Who, "Won't Get Fooled Again" for the second at bat, assuming he gets a second at bat...

I always pictured myself as a "Comfortably Numb" (Pink Floyd) kind of guy, walking in from the bullpen, but I don't share that vision with my children...

Of course, if they outlawed this whole practice, I'd give thanks.
td25td2510+ posts
quote:
Originally posted by piaa_ump:
quote:
Originally posted by td25:
quote:
Originally posted by SultanofSwat:
HSV coach today: "No walk up songs here. Just fundamental baseball"


Thank you for saying that. Winning teams don't do walk-up songs. They get in the box, concentrate, and hit pi$$missles.


Cant say I disagree, because the most ridiculus thing that can happen is a player waiting to walk up to his music...."let the bodies hit the floor" as I remember, then strike out on 3 straight swings.....


Now thats funny.

Walk-up songs are cocky, and they can be used against you by the other team if you fail. This is a great example of that.

Some of these kids can use a dose of humility.
Last edited by td25
P Prime91,000+ posts
quote:
Walk-up songs are cocky, and they can be used against you by the other team if you fail.


td25 ... This will probably surprise you, but Good hitters don't for a second consider failing! And considering them cocky because of their walk-up songs??? ... what's 9 hitters times 30 MLB teams that all play walk-ups?? The songs just might be here to stay. What about "high fives" and "fist pumps", now there is a real demonstration, by your barometer, of what not being humble is all about???
Last edited by Prime9
scdiggerscdigger500+ posts
Honestly, I think, at least from my perspective, the walk-ups are less about the player (even though they can request their own) and more about the atmosphere outside the fence for the fans...same with announcing names, music between innings, heck having a scoreboard even. My son on ocassion will say, "why do you play that song, everybody in the dugout hates it." But the music, I feel, "in game" is for the fans and not the players...as a matter of fact, I "let" the players submit some playlist request last year for pre-game and in-game music...out of about 50 songs they requested, I had to delete/censor 39 of them...if Lil' Wayne was on the list, I didn't even look up the lyrics.

But no, NEVER play a song over the PA system if you haven't either listened to it or read the lyrics. And yes, GunEmDown10 - Audicity is great!
2Bmom2Bmom1,000+ posts
I agree with you, sc.

2B and I are going to put the playlist together this weekend, and he's going to help me edit. I think he is embarrassed by some of the songs his teammates picked, and wants to edit them himself so as not to offend mom's tender ears. Wink

Surprisingly, Lil' Wayne actually has a clean song out. One of the few that 2B will play for me on his boom-boom-boom car stereo. Can't remember the name, but it's inspired by Michael Phelps.
td25td2510+ posts
quote:
Originally posted by Prime9:
quote:
Walk-up songs are cocky, and they can be used against you by the other team if you fail.


td25 ... This will probably surprise you, but Good hitters don't for a second consider failing! And considering them cocky because of their walk-up songs??? ... what's 9 hitters times 30 MLB teams that all play walk-ups?? The songs just might be here to stay. What about "high fives" and "fist pumps", now there is a real demonstration, by your barometer, of what not being humble is all about???


Once a kid makes it to the majors, they earn the right to play a walk-up song, not before. When I played in highschool, I was the fastest kid I played with or against (even led our league in SB). One day I drew 2 tiny lightning bolts on the brim of my cap. Once the coach saw it, he ripped into me, and the whole team was forced to run for it the next 2 hours of practice. That cured me of my cockyness immediately.

Everyone knows they are going to fail at some point, even the good hitters. Baseball is built that way. Why play a cocky walk-up song, and give the other team ammunition against you? It may surprise you, but it also disrespects the other team. Its just stupid in my opinion.
Last edited by td25
bsbl247bsbl2471,000+ posts
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!
JMoffJMoff1,000+ posts
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...
Jimmy03Jimmy031,000+ posts
quote:
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."
GunEmDown10GunEmDown101,000+ posts
quote:
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
D DuckinDD10+ posts
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!
bsbl247bsbl2471,000+ posts
quote:
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!
wraggArmwraggArm500+ posts
quote:
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.
Last edited by wraggArm
S ShowvolMember
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.
GunEmDown10GunEmDown101,000+ posts
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!Big Grin

We play Sweet Caroline too. GED10DaD
P Prime91,000+ posts
quote:
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).
S ShowvolMember
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!Big Grin

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.
L Leftysidearmom100+ posts
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.
biggerpapibiggerpapi5,000+ posts
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.
2Bmom2Bmom1,000+ posts
quote:
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! Smile 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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