Baseball songs, happy songs, walk-up songs

Have you ever thought about your walk-up song?

I have known what mine would be since 2001.

In those 24 years, the answer has always remained the same.

And today I have a story for you involving that very song.

At the beginning of the school year, our head teacher asked us to submit our walk up song, or just a song that represented us. She explained that she would play a song at the beginning of staff meetings and see if anyone could guess whose song it was. Fun idea.

This was the Google Form:

This is something I feel very passionate about. I truly love baseball. I mean, obviously, because I’m writing this blog post. I truly love music. I submitted my answer to her immediately, and since the Google form had a “second choice” and I didn’t need a second choice, I used that space to explain to her how this was something I feel very passionate about and it’s right at the intersection of two of my great interests, etc etc etc. I basically wrote an essay. Then after clicking submit, I had a flash of horror: oh no, I told myself. You just revealed Too Much. What if they look at your differently now and think you’re Too Much? Oh well, it was too late.

Have you ever had that thought? Oh no, I overshared too intensely and now I’m a weirdo? I feel like I’m bad at talking about myself or my interests without making it weird and I’ve only gotten worse over time. How? I don’t know. I should be better at talking about things I love, I think? Right? Does that ever happen? I don’t know how to share just a little bit and then I spend a great amount of time thinking about how that gets perceived. I rehash those kinds of conversations over and over in my head and think of what I should have said instead, like there was this one perfect thing I could have said that would have perfectly captured my intentions and landed in a satisfying way. Yeah, maybe there’s a chance to the other person it was actually just a normal conversation. But I can never know for sure. I wish I could always ask people I’m acting super normal and chill right now. Right? No one is mad at me? You have to tell me if you are. A quick little review of social interactions would be really helpful. Five stars, bam, nailed it.

That is super not normal or chill.

But we need to talk about my song.

So all year, the songs have been playing at staff meetings. “Up in Here” by DMX, naturally. Classic rock like AC/DC, you bet. Boy band pop songs from the 90s? Of course. “Uptown Funk?” Gon’ give it to ya! Those are all pretty good as walk-up songs, honestly and I genuinely enjoy “Uptown Funk.”

The song, my friends: salt…sweat…sugar on the asphalt. “Bleed American,” the blistering first track off of a great record that was known as Bleed American from July to December 2001 and then again from 2008 to present. Just one more thing 9/11 fucked up.

This song gets me pumped every time I hear it. It would be the perfect song to get me ready to hit a 100 MPH fastball. For a moment please imagine I am very strong and good at baseball and have even a slight chance of making contact. Yeah, there’s me. Walking to the plate with confidence while singing I’m not alone ‘cause the TV’s on yeah!  The reality is I would be scared and hoping the pitcher throws four balls so I can jog down to first. Thank you for indulging me.

I wasn’t thinking about it at all that day.

I didn’t know it was going to be the meeting where my song played.

So there we are in the small school library. There were about 20 of us. People milling about, chatting, waiting for the meeting to start. Without warning, the play button was pressed. Those first notes that would be getting me ready to hit caused everyone to freeze. It got real quiet real fast. It felt like the air left the room. You could see people thinking about the song. Eyes darted around the room. Troubled looks shot back and forth. I tried to act chill and normal and look like I too was deep in thought about the song blasting over the portable Bluetooth speaker. Oh who could it be?

Finally, someone spoke up, wondering aloud to help solve the riddle: “Who in here is a big headbanger?”

No response. Just eyes continuing to dart around the room. Another long silence.

I’m not crazy ‘cause I take the right pills everyday…

“I think it’s…Crit?” another person said in a tone that said conveyed a guess.

I smiled and nodded. The song was turned off. An “ohhhhh” ran through the room. Some people seemed relieved. I sure was. The moment had passed. That wasn’t so bad. The meeting was about to begin.

“Wait, who was it?” someone piped up.

“It was me,” I responded, not understanding what she meant.

“No, I mean who is the artist?”

“Jimmy Eat World.”

“Oh, I’ve heard of them,” another teacher chimed in. “I only know their happy songs, though.” 

And then the meeting began. It’s possible that what happened was chill and normal. It’s possible that as soon as the meeting began everyone moved on and completely forgot what just happened. But it’s also possible now I’m the guy with that crazy rock song to some of them. It’s kind of delightful and kind of scary how those things end up sticking.

I only know their happy songs. What a great quote. Thinking back, it’s very sweet. “The Middle” and “Sweetness” are most definitely happy songs. But I don’t need a happy song to get me ready to hit a baseball. I need The Great Power of Rock Music!

For the record, there are three songs I have even considered to replace “Bleed American,” and one of them is actually on the same record. “A Praise Chorus” might be the best song of all time, and would also make a great walk-up song. It also gets me excited every time I hear it. What a record that is. I saw them play Clarity and Futures, I would love to see that record live too.

The second is “The Moneymaker” by Rilo Kiley. I would absolutely bop to it as I walked to the plate.

Same goes for the third song, “Run Away With Me” by the queen Carly Rae Jepsen.

an extremely close look at mlb players walk-up songs and the link between

Each MLB team has a page on their website where they list the players walk-up songs with links to the tracks on Spotify. Pretty neat, though it would be nice if it was anything other than Spotify! Here’s the link to the Red Sox page; just replace their name with your favorite team in the url.

I know you’re wondering if there’s any correlation between how well a team keeps their list updated and how they perform on the field. That is just about the perfect thing for my brain to dig into.

I spent some time over the past two days looking at all 30 team pages. It seems like most teams keep it up to date! I love that. The White Sox and Marlins, however, don’t have a single player listed. The Phillies only list 3, the Rockies 4, the Pirates 10, and the Athletics 12. Every other team has at least 14, which is more than half of a full roster. Shoutout to the Angels, who for some reason have 37 players on their list, or way more than a full roster. Let’s take a closer look at these teams with 12 or less players listed.

So the Phillies are good, okay. Cool. Kyle Schwarber forever. But the other five teams are very bad. Five of the six worst teams! The Rockies are historically bad! Look, I’m not saying there’s a connection here, but I’m not not saying that either. These teams should call me and let me choose their music for a day. The first all Midwest Emo MLB game is within reach, my friends.

What about the guys who are actually good at baseball? What kind of artists are they choosing to walk up to bat to? I got you.

I took a look at each artist listed and compiled the data in a spreadsheet. I looked at the 696 songs from the 529 players listed. (Some players have two or even three songs listed, and many of the songs have multiple artists.)

[While writing this, I got a Bluesky message and learned of this website which is a database of walk-up songs. Super cool! I’ve put too much time into my spreadsheet to change it up now though!]

Here is a complete list of all the artists that appear at least three times.

My favorite pick by far is Mitch Garver of the Mariners, who picked “Dear Maria, Count Me In” by All Time Low.

Shoutout to Pete Fairbanks of the Rays for picking a blink-182 song that wasn’t a single, “Anthem Part Two.” Did you know there’s a picture of Julien Baker on the Wikipedia page for that song? Well now you do.

Brandon Pfaadt’s pick of “Intro” by The Xx absolutely rules.

And my final recognition goes out to two Pirates. Joey Wentz went with “Team” by Lorde but it wasn’t even the best pick on the team because Jared Triolo picked “Sweetness” by Jimmy Eat World.

And as we all know, that’s a happy song.

and here are some records I’ve been jamming to

New good stuff. Listen to it.

Alien Boy - You Wanna Fade?
Arm’s Length - There’s a Whole World Out There
Charmer - Downpour
Home Is Where - Hunting Season
Little Low - Sunshine Guilt
Memory Gardens - everything you have is on your back EP
Rodeo Boys - Junior
Teens in Trouble / Bat Boy - split EP

Not new but also very good. You should listen.

Bottom Bracket - I’m So Afraid of Where
Cartel - Chroma
Elliott Green - Everything I Lack
Gatsbys American Dream - Volcano