Category Archives: Baseball

Baseball, Inappropriate Walkup Music 2009

Inappropriate Walk Up Music: 03.28.09

santo-shea.jpgFor previous Inappropriate Walk Up Music posts, click here.

Every day until Opening Day, Scratchbomb presents three tunes that are completely, unequivocally inappropriate for use as major league walk-up
music.

These are not necessarily bad songs–although that
certainly helps. They are merely songs that don’t evoke the fear and dread one traditionally associates with the walk-up song. In fact, they evoke the exact opposite.

Imagine yourself in the on-deck circle. Bottom of the 9th. Down by one. Man on second, two out. You hear the PA system blare, The centerfielder, number 20… The crowd roars at the sound of your name. And as you stroll to the batter’s box, you are greeted with the strains of one of these songs:

*”Girl Afraid”, The Smiths
I wanted to include a Smiths song in this list, but nearly all of them would be inappropriate in this context, so it was hard to pick just one. Then, I heard this song pop up on iTunes shuffle, and the lightbulb went off.

* “We’re Having a Baby”, The Make-Up
Not to be confused with “She’s Having My Baby”, which is just as inappropriate. I can think of some Make-Up tunes that would work as walk-up music (“Untouchable Sound” for one), but this ain’t one of them.

* “Wo Ist Du Haus, Mama”, Johnny Cash
They used to play this track often on WFMU, and I could never figure out if it was hilarious or bone-chilling. Just like The Beatles, The Man in Black cut a bunch of tracks in German early in his career. As much as Johnny Cash in English is bad-ass, that’s how much Johnny Cash in German is fucking terrifying. All of the Deutsch versions are weird in this “video”, but fast-forward to 6:24 to hear the especially bizarre tune “Wo Ist Du Haus, Mama”.

Baseball

We Built this Citi on a Former Ash Field

citifield3.jpgI’ll be traveling to CitiField for the first time this weekend, to watch St. John’s take on Georgetown. That would be a great matchup, if it were a basketball game. And it was still 1987.

Obviously, my main objective in this outing is to grab a sneak peek of the Mets’ new ballpark. Lotsa web sites have been posting pics and previews lately, so I’m ultra excited. I may even live-TwitPic the event. The Wife might, too. We shall keep you posted.

But if there’s anything you wanna know, any item you want to see a photo of, or any questions you want answered, comment here and I will endeavor to answer them on Sunday.

Huge-ass photo-packed post to follow on Monday. Unless it sucks. In which case, huge-ass profanity-laced post to follow on Monday.

Baseball, Inappropriate Walkup Music 2009

Inappropriate Walk Up Music: 03.27.09

santo-shea.jpgFor previous Inappropriate Walk Up Music posts, click here.

Every day until Opening Day, Scratchbomb presents three tunes that are completely, unequivocally inappropriate for use as major league walk-up
music.

These are not necessarily bad songs–although that
certainly helps. They are merely songs that don’t evoke the fear and dread one traditionally associates with the walk-up song. In fact, they evoke the exact opposite.

Imagine yourself in the on-deck circle. Bottom of the 9th. Down by one. Man on second, two out. You hear the PA system blare, The centerfielder, number 20… The crowd roars at the sound of your name. And as you stroll to the batter’s box, you are greeted with the strains of one of these songs:

* “The Battle of Evermore”, Led Zeppelin
I deem this song inappropriate because it does not rock, and because it’s full of ridiculous medieval imagery and pseudo-mystical nonsense. And because it inspired a generation of dumb stoner metalheads to try to pick up 12-string guitars and write songs about hobbits.

Side note: There are many rock bands with have a charismatic frontman who is the strongest element from an image standpoint, but the absolute weakest musical link. Led Zeppelin is a prime example. See also: The Doors.

* The song from the tunnel scene in “Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory”
Imagine you’re at a game, and as someone comes to bat, the Jumbotron shows this scene. I mean, just picture this horror broadcast to a crowd of 50,000. By the time Gene Wilder sang “is it raining, is it snowing, is a hurricane a-blowing…” everyone in the stands would have soiled themselves.

* “Prayer to God”, Shellac
Possibly the angriest song ever. Especially if you’ve ever seen them do it live. I saw Shellac twice, they did this song both times, and I swear my sternum was vibrating by the end as Steve Albini screamed KILL HIM! FUCKING KILL HIM! KILL HIM ALREADY! KILL HIM!

Also, never heckle Steve Albini unless you’re prepared to get totally owned. (I absolutely hate the Show Heckling trend; every show I go to now, some hipster douche has a whole routine worked up in his head to yell at quiet parts of the show. But that’s a whole other post.) One time I saw Shellac, some girl kept screaming at the top of her lungs, in a seemingly pseudo-ironic way. Albini finally couldn’t take it anymore and yelled back, “Jesus, woman, what is your day job–siren?!”