Baseball's best tradition: The Walk-Up Song
the playlist behind the platter
Stepping Into a Foreign Ballpark 🧢
If you know me, you know the sports gene didn’t quite make it into my DNA. No sport I’ve ever tried as a kid has stuck, and that core belief has kept me from pursuing any serious athletic opportunity (as of now eh!)
I’d also much rather drop money on a concert than a football match any day of the week. However! Any invitation to such an event wouldn’t be rejected, and, to my surprise, there was pleasure to be found at my first game ever, courtesy of my Tío Libe, my ambivalent uncle, guitar player, and former baseball player and current fanatic.
At the loanDepot Park, home to the Marlins, is where my understanding of baseball’s dynamics began: the fly/rollings¹, doble-play², ponchao³… And beyond those technicalities, I was able to grasp its cultural components — the slow burn pace, the insane butts of the players, peanuts and liter beers, and to my interest, the unforeseen presence of music in the game.
I can’t really attest to other sports, but music is practically engrained in the flow of every baseball game I have attended (prolly just a U.S. thing). The match sets off with the National anthem, “Take Me Out to the Ball Game” is thrown on the seventh-inning stretch with everyone and their mothers knowing the lyrics, and throughout the whole thing, we hear Walk-Up Songs.
Walk-Up songs?
“A walk-up song is a few bars of a song played when a batter for the home team comes to the plate to play. Each player has a song. No song is used by more than one player for the same team”
think of hype. think of soundtrack. think of identity.
Walk-up songs serve on multiple purposes:
Locking in. The right song fuels the player’s confidence. un espaldarazo.
NRG synergies. It’s not just for the player—walk-up songs hype up the fans, the player feeding himself off of that external emotion.
Personal signature. Each is a statement revealing a glimpse of the player’s mindset, culture, or personality before they even take a swing.
This concept was born on the 1970s, where the organist Nancy Faust would play tunes in accordance to the player’s reputation, special quirk or characteristic popular amongst the public.
While the essence has stayed the same, the organ has been swapped by speakers, and now the player get to choose their track instead of it being assigned.
For me, it was hella entertaining not only to hear and bust out to the songs, but to theorise about the reasoning behind each batter’s choice. one first thing that immediately stood out was how certain genres prevailed—salsa, reggaeton, hip-hop, and country. The connection to culture was undeniable, considering that the games I watched were in Miami and Houston, two cities whose teams are heavily conformed by Latin and Southern players.
Components of a Solid Walk Up song
You’d ideally choose a song that holds at least some value to you. You don’t have to lay bare your deepest sense of self. Maybe it coincidentally says your name! Maybe it mentions you crooked nose! Beyond that, you should just pick one that genuinely sets you off right, and that you have some kind of emotional attachment to.
Ojo. you don’t want to be choosing the song of the summer, a song that devalues over time, one that you might end up despising bc of the overplay, or just so widespread known that it cannot be associated just to you. you hope to have 300+ at bats at your home ballpark in a year; do you really want to hear Espresso that many times?
Finally, and this is quite the obvious recommendation: pick a sticky hook, massive guitar riff, or iconic one liner that can hype the crowd, and give that lil extra push needed to stimulate that arm strength. there’s a reason why Gwen Stefani’s The Sweet Escape ranks as a common pick (hint: woo-hoo WOO-hoo). It also explains Rock is also quite a favoured genre.
Having listed some common pitfalls and narrowing down the list…
Isa’s pick
Weeeeell, pretty self-explanatory, isn’t it? After meticulous assessment, Game Winner by Vulfpeck meets my established standards and criteria quite nicely.
First, the title itself speaks volumes. Beyond that obvious connection, the track features an elegant, repetitive piano motif that creates instant recognition (☑️ sticky factor). Since it's never charted commercially, it maintains that crucial uniqueness (☑️ not overplayed) that prevents fatigue or confusion with another player's choice.
I have used it as lucky charm for years, accompanying me through life's challenges and victories (☑️ personal value). Plus points for the fact that it represents my deep appreciation for soul music, adding an extra layer of me-ness to it.
The only downside I could think of is that it lacks the conventional "powerfulness" typically found in walk-up songs. There’s no driving beat or high BPM, but perhaps that subtle sophistication is exactly what would make it memorable.
For the next seasons, my strong contenders would be:
Practically any song from The College Dropout by Kanye, cause they just has a young-spirited fun and excitement to them. The con is the possible association to Kanye’s values :/
QUEER by Brockhampton, since it’s my all-time gym pump up song. Perfect 160BPM for a 8.3 speed treadmill run.
Fell in the Sun by Big Grams. So majestic i can just imagine batting tiktok compilations being made out of me to this song.
The right song goes a long way…
Digging around, I stumbled upon a performance of Empire State of Mind by Jay-Z and Alicia Keys in the Yankee Stadium for the MLB World Series Game 2009 - Game 2.
Some peeps in the comments swear that this very performance sparked the Yankees' comeback that season, fueling the momentum that ultimately led them to the championship. Whether that’s fact or fan folklore, it’s a testament to just how powerful the right track can be. In this case, the collective spark it stirred could have been all it took to turn the whole game around.
So yeah — the right song goes a long way.
Maybe that’s all I need to become sporty⚾️
fly/rollings¹ - A batted ball that rises high into the air before it/one batted on the ground
doble-play² - (exciting) defensive maneuver resulting in two outs during the same continuous play
ponchao - strikeout - When a batter has accumulated three strikes and is eliminated from the plate.