Part 1
OPINION Baseball Walk-Up Songs: For the Good of the Game
By Tanner McConlogue
March 27, 2024
As the 2024 season of Major League Baseball begins, locker rooms are abuzz with players selecting their walk-up songs. Avid baseball fans are undoubtedly already familiar with their favorite players’ walk-up songs, but less-avid fans and non-fans may not be familiar with the concept. In short, a walk-up song is a song, selected by each batter, that plays over the ballpark loudspeakers when he walks from the on-deck circle to home plate to begin each at-bat. Each pitcher also selects a walk-up song that plays when he walks from the dugout or bullpen to the pitching mound to begin his pitching stint. The concept sounds fairly innocuous but has generated pushback and controversy, especially among traditionalists who favor live organ music in ballparks. However, faced with declining interest in baseball, especially from younger fans, the MLB has entered a time of change in order to compete for younger audiences. Modern prerecorded walk-up songs enhance fan engagement, increase entertainment value, and appeal to younger audiences in ways that organ music cannot, and thus are good for the game of baseball.
A Brief History
Understanding the controversy between proponents of recorded popular music versus live organ music requires a brief history of the origin and evolution of walk-up songs. Ironically, many credit a ballpark organist with originating the idea. In 1941, the Chicago Cubs were the first team to install an organ in their ballpark, and other teams quickly followed suit. Nearly all teams employed a full-time organist, many of whom were clever and spontaneously played snippets of songs that fit a particular player or occurrence in the game. In 1970, the Chicago White Sox hired Nancy Faust, and she became the first organist to select and play a tune as a batter came to the plate. She typically selected a song that reflected some aspect of the batter, like his name, home state, or other characteristic: “Who Are You” for a rookie, or “Like a Virgin” for a player dating Madonna. Through her music, Faust gave additional commentary to the game almost like a second announcer. Other organists soon adopted the practice. At that time, the player had no input on the choice of song. During the 1970s and ’80s, with advances in technology and the advent of huge electronic scoreboards, teams began to play recorded pop music to appeal to younger fans. Team personnel began selecting recordings for players in 1990, and in the mid-1990s, players started choosing their own songs.
The Controversy
Not all have welcomed the MLB soundmen and their contemporary recorded music. Some lament the expansion of recorded popular music in MLB games and favor a return to traditional live organ music. The Los Angeles Angels’ former organist, dismissed in 2005, has complained that prerecorded music lacks spontaneity and a non-mechanical “feeling.” Old-timers have also grumbled about a loss of spontaneity and a “gentle” feel. Some sportswriters have criticized modern ballpark music as “canned” and “loud, artless, artificial, force-fed noise.” They lament that “thumping rock and rap themes” selected by batters have replaced clever, improvised organ tunes selected by organists. Faust, the White Sox organist who retired in 2010, has stated that replacing organs with rock songs has cost baseball part of its identity: “[W]e’re hearing the same music you hear at shopping malls. There’s nothing baseball about it.”
Declining Popularity
These arguments resonate with older generations who grew up during baseball’s live organ era of the 1940s, ’50s, and ’60s. However, they overlook that the world has changed, primarily driven by technological advances, and that baseball must change to keep pace. To maintain popularity, MLB baseball has had to forge a new identity. Since 1960, baseball has declined in popularity due to greater competition from other sports – especially football, basketball, soccer, and esports and competitive video gaming – and the shift from radio to television, which favored faster-paced sports with less downtime. In a 2021 poll, only 11% of Americans chose baseball as their favorite sport to watch, down from 34% in 1960 and 19% in 1994. In 1960, baseball was firmly entrenched in first place, but has now dropped behind first-place football to tie for second with basketball. The numbers among under-30-year-olds are even more concerning, with only 7% identifying baseball as their favorite and baseball placing fifth behind football, basketball, “something else,” and soccer.
A Time for Change
Non-baseball-fans attribute their lack of baseball interest to the game being “boring/uninteresting” with games being “too slow/too long.” Many sportswriters cite a loss of entertainment value, with too many strikeouts, not enough hits, and too much downtime. In 2023, the MLB implemented several rule changes – including the pitch clock, bigger bases, and no infield shift – aimed at increasing pace of play, eliminating downtime, shortening overall game time, and increasing action. The consensus has been that the rule changes are a step in the right direction, but signify only the beginning of the game’s need to embrace change, engage a new generation, and increase excitement. For a number of reasons, modern walk-up songs engage fans – especially younger ones – and generate excitement far better than organ music.
Walk-Up Songs Are Personal
Walk-up songs – selected by the player from a music genre and artist of his choosing – provide an avenue of self-expression that leads to a more personal connection with fans. Through his song selection, each player shares a little of his personality. This serves to humanize the player. It is no longer just Freddie Freeman, Dodgers first baseman, walking to the plate. It is Freddie, father of seven-year-old Charlie who picked “Tití Me Preguntó” by Bad Bunny because Charlie likes to dance to its beat.
Freddie walks to the plate in 2023 to Bad Bunny’s “Tití Me Preguntó.” Video courtesy of YouTube.
Inappropriate lyrics such as those in “Tití Me Preguntó” do not pose a problem for the soundmen who can sidestep the issue by using a clean version or carefully selecting a 15-second clip. Players select songs because they personally connect with the songs in some way – with its beat, tempo, lyrics, or sound. The songs would simply not sound the same if played on an organ, and the personal connection would be lost.
Walk-Up Songs Are Diverse
Walk-up songs reflect the cultural and ethnic diversity of MLB players and resonate with diverse groups of fans. Players choose from a wide variety of music genres. In 2019, MLB players selected walk-up songs from thirteen different music genres: rap/hip hop (29%), rock (17%), latin pop/fusion (15%), country (8%), pop (8%), reggaeton (8%), dance/electronic (4%), salsa/classical/soundtrack (4%), Christian (3%), metal/metalcore (3%), and house (1%). Every fan will not like every player’s song, but the selections are diverse enough to give almost every fan something they like.
Within these genres, players select a specific song by a specific artist, and they expect to hear a recording of the song performed by that artist. Again, the song would simply not sound the same if played on an organ. In 2019 and again in 2023, the artist most frequently selected by MLB players was Bad Bunny, a Puerto Rican rapper. Bad Bunny is not a surprising choice, given that he was the most streamed artist on Spotify from 2020 through 2022 and second only to Taylor Swift in 2023. This suggests that MLB players’ music choices mirror the world’s music choices, at least with respect to the portion of the world that streams on Spotify. Furthermore, since MLB players are typically between the ages of 20 and 40, their music choices align most closely with that age group, which supports the MLB’s goal of increasing its younger fan base.
Walk-Up Songs Can Be Very Exciting
Another MLB goal is to make games more exciting for fans, and walk-up songs can be very exciting. At a minimum, they are generally upbeat and set a positive mood, and sometimes they catch on and start a fervor that helps propel a player or team to great success. From 1998 through 2008, San Diego Padres closing pitcher Trevor Hoffman entered games to the sound of AC/DC’s “Hell’s Bells.”
The ominous tolling of the bells excited the crowd for “Trevor Time” and warned the opposing team it was most likely about to lose. Video courtesy of YouTube.
Hoffman became one of the most successful closers of all time, setting records and later inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame.
A similar fervor arose in 2022 as New York Mets closing pitcher Edwin Diaz entered games to the rousing trumpet sounds and pounding bass of Blasterjaxx/Timmy Trumpet’s “Narco.”
Mets mascots and fans join in the trumpeting. Video courtesy of YouTube.
In 2022, seemingly propelled by the song, Diaz had his best season ever.
The “Baby Shark” phenomenon in 2019 set the record for the biggest craze. The Washington Nationals had a losing record and Gerardo Parra was 0-for-22 at the plate until Parra picked Pinkfong’s “Baby Shark,” a children’s song that his two-year-old daughter liked, as his walk-up song. Parra dramatically ended his slump, and the Nationals suddenly started winning.
Nationals players and fans enthusiastically embraced “Baby Shark” for the season, complete with chomping hand motions and shark costumes. Video courtesy of YouTube.
The Nationals won the 2019 World Series. The world will never know if the Nationals would have won the World Series without “Baby Shark,” but the song certainly created a great deal of excitement and momentum. Not every walk-up song will catch on like “Hell’s Bells,” “Narco,” and “Baby Shark,” but the potential for a craze is always there, and at a minimum, walk-up songs inject an element of fun that adds to the entertainment value of baseball.
A Blended Approach for the Good of the Game
Walk-up songs help baseball appeal to a wider and younger audience, not just long-time, traditional baseball fans. This is critical to baseball’s long term success and survival. However, this does not call for abandonment of organ music like “Charge!” to fire up the crowd and “Take Me Out to the Ball Game” during the seventh-inning stretch. The old musical traditions, albeit more limited than in the past, can peacefully coexist with the new traditions in a blended approach. However, old-school fans must accept that the clock cannot be turned back. Walk-up songs, in the form of prerecorded music by artists of each player’s choosing, are here to stay. Walk-up songs support the MLB’s goals of increasing fan engagement and entertainment value because they are personal, diverse, and exciting. All fans – old or young, long-acquainted with baseball or new to the game – should check out the 2024 walk-up songs, think about what the songs reveal about the players, and enjoy the entertainment.
Part 2
Choice of Genre. For Writing Project 3, I wrote an opinion piece for an online sports publication of general circulation, such as si.com, espn.com, or cnn.com/sport. I chose this genre because I felt strongly about sharing my opinion about baseball walk-up songs being good for the game. I wanted to write an article more formal and longer than a blog, but less formal and shorter than a persuasive essay. I had never written an article of this kind before, so I wanted to give it a try.
Stylistic and Formatting Conventions. To familiarize myself with the genre’s stylistic and formatting conventions, I reviewed a number of online sports publications. I found that the style and format varies somewhat, allowing some room for personal preference. Most of the articles I read were written in third person, so I chose to write in third person as well. To promote readability, I chose 1.5 line spacing. I chose a catchy title, “Baseball Walk-Up Songs: For the Good of the Game,” to draw in readers who already know what a walk-up song is, as well as those who don’t. My hope was that knowledgeable readers would want to know why walk-up songs are good for the game, and that less knowledgeable readers would want to find out what walk-up songs are.
I designed my opening sentence about the beginning of the 2024 MLB season and locker rooms being “abuzz” to hook my readers into wanting to be in on the “buzz.” I included definitions of both batter and pitcher walk-up songs in my introduction so even non-baseball-fans would be fully informed. I then briefly touched on the controversy, the declining interest in baseball, and the need for change, before stating my claim. My hope was that by the end of my introductory paragraph, my readers would be yearning to know more.
To promote reading flow and to clearly identify each subtopic, I included eight bolded subheadings. I wanted to break my points into bite-sized pieces to keep my readers engaged and following along. I tried to be concise, but also to include enough detail to make my points. I included just enough history to set the stage for the controversy. In describing the controversy, I was respectful of the arguments of organ proponents. I included statistics on the decline in baseball’s popularity to set the stage for why baseball needs to change. I included statistics on walk-up song genres and artists to illustrate diversity and to show that player music preferences align with Spotify music preferences. Finally, I concluded with a call to action: for old-school, organ proponents to accept that prerecorded popular music is the present and future of the game; and for all fans to take an interest in walk-up songs as a form of entertainment.
I referenced all of my sources with hyperlinks, as is the custom in online articles. I carefully selected four YouTube videos to provide impactful visual and auditory examples of walk-up songs. There were countless possibilities, but I didn’t want to overwhelm my readers with too many examples. I really wanted my readers to hear the walk-up songs, to see the crowd react, and to feel the tension and excitement. I was disappointed that I wasn’t able to include a great Trevor Hoffman video. The sounds and images of him jogging to the mound, the tolling of “Hell’s Bells,” the crowd on its feet, and the giant scoreboard flashing “Trevor Time” is awesome. All of that was featured on the last segment of a lengthy YouTube video. I clipped the video and tried to insert the clip into my document, but I got an error message that the format was “unsupported.” If my article were to be published, I would need to get help inserting the clip, as just the sound of “Hell’s Bells” with the Padres logo is not nearly as impactful. However, I did learn how to take a screenshot of a video frame, and to have the screenshot serve as a hyperlink to the full video. I included brief captions under the screenshots like those I saw in the online examples.
Audience. Writers typically use this genre to address the public generally, as well as those interested in sports in general or in a particular sport. My intended audience was the public generally, consisting of both baseball fans and non-baseball fans. Targeted sub-audiences include those interested in sports in general, in baseball, or in a sport other than baseball, and those interested in music in sports or music in baseball. My purpose was both to inform and to persuade.