I have no idea how this escaped my notice until now. No matter. All you need to know–if you didn’t know it before–is that MLB is hosting a Moniker Madness tournament on its minor league site. A field of 64 players toiling away in the minor leagues has been assembled to determine one thing: who has the most hilarious name in professional baseball?
MLB says, “the best name”, but obviously in this context best = most chuckle inducing. They’ve conducted this tournament for the last three years. Again, I have no clue how I missed this before. But I ain’t missing it this time.
Who will win: Chia-Chu Chen? Callix Crabbe? Lovesquiz Santana? Arquimedes Euclides Caminero? Insiders tell me the smart money’s on Sundrendy Windster.
I know I’ve said before that I’d watch the Mets in an active volcano if that’s where they played, but I have limits to what I’d risk to see my favorite team in person. For instance, if I don’t think I’d go out to Flushing if there was a chance I’d get my head cut off.
That, apparently, is the risk run by fans of the Indios, a soccer team from Ciudad Juarez, a border town where drug-related gang violence has reached Robocop-levels of insanity. A story in yesterday’s New York Times details how the city’s residents have rallied around the team, despite the insane danger they face simply by leaving the house:
But the lurid headlines, the murder of the deputy police chief and the threats to decapitate the mayor[!] have not deterred soccer fans, at least on game days.
But the players are probably insulated from the such insanities. Hey, they’re celebrities, right? Well…
Needless to say, these conditions make it difficult for the team to attract star players, or get a bigger stadium built. I imagine the mayor’s got bigger issues on his mind than building a new arena, like not getting his head lopped off.
Would you go to any event in a city like this? Would you even live in such a place, if you
had any choice?
And yet, according to the article, the Indios pretty much sell out their games, and no incidents erupt during the games. Of course, once the matches end, it’s back to business as usual–which, in Juarez, means over 2000 murders in the last 14 months.
Think about that the next time you wanna complain about $15 parking fees and $7 beers.
For 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:
* “Seven Nation Army”, The Flaming Lips I’m sure there’s several dozen major leaguers who walk up to the batter’s box to the original White Stripes version. I’d love to see someone switch out the CDs and hear an entire stadium reverberate with Gibby Haynes-penned lines like “I’m goin to Florida/I’m gonna bowl me a perfect game/I’m goin to Florida/I’m gonna cut off both my legs…”
* “Shut Up”, The Monks This could actually be quite appropriate. Musically, it rocks pretty hard, as do most of The Monks’ tunes. The inappropriateness comes from the band’s image, their lyrics, their backstory, and their general outlook on life. They were all servicemen who played together in a band at their army base in Germany in the mid-60s. After their hitch ended, they stayed on in Hamburg to try and crack the same swingin’ scene that birthed the Beatles. In a pique of collective madness, they renamed themselves The Monks and dressed like monks everywhere they went (even cutting their hair in tonsures). Luckily for them, Germany’s just about the only country in the world where this act would fly.
The Monks made stompin’ garage rock that was also darker than pretty much anything else circa-1965. It was probably as dark as anything, musically, until punk appeared 10 years later. They put out one album in Europe that was fucking incredible, then imploded from collective insanity and burnout. Here’s a video to demonstrate the full extent of their crazy-tude.
* “I’d Rather Jack”, The Reynold Girls There’s a Worst Song Ever thread going on at the Friends of Tom forum. FOT mike_b posted this video there, and while I can’t say it’s the worst song ever, I am astounded by its aggressively 1989-ish brand of pop suckitude. What makes it perfect for this post is that “I’d Rather Jack” could sort of apply to a batter (as in, I’d rather jack a home run over the center field wall), except that it’s really a song about chicks who hate Fleetwood Mac and have decided to express this hatred to a Rick Astley beat.
