My brother recently purchased MLB 09:The Show for Playstation 3 (ME WANTEE). One of the many features of this game is that you can upload your own MP3s to the hard drive and customize walk-up music for all your favorite players.

You can also record your own crowd noise. Seriously, if I had this game (or a PS3), I would spend so much time customizing the game environment, I would never actually play a game. I’d spend an entire day recording hateful taunts for Chipper Jones alone. Most of them wouldn’t be the least bit clever, either. Stuff like, “Chipper, I hope one day everyone you love abandons you and die alone and afraid!”

This revelation led to the discussion of awesome walk-up songs, and what we would pick for our own walk-up songs if we were major leaguers. Me, I’d opt for either “Right Brigade” by Bad Brains or the intro to “Little Friend” by Minor Threat. Yes, I gave this a great deal of thought.

But this also led to a parallel train of thought: What would be the worst walk-up music ever? Not necessarily the worst songs ever (although bad songs would surely have an edge here). But these tunes would have to be the exact opposite of the kind of intimidating, in-your-face songs that most hitters opt for.

Real-life example: Robin Ventura gets a lifetime pass from yours truly. He hit the grand slam single, which means I would totally bust that guy out of jail if he asked me to. But during the 2000 season, his at-bats were accompanied by various Bob Dylan songs. Most often, “Like a Rolling Stone” or “Positively 4th Street.” *

* I possess several bits of video/audio evidence that will attest to this fact, but I dare not post them for fear of MLB’s mighty lawyer-filled wrath. So you’ll have to take my word for it.

Now, far be it from me to impugn either of these classics. But they’re really not songs a major league baseball player should hear as he steps to the plate. I would pick 8 million songs I can’t stand before I picked ruminative, existential tunes like these.

So, my little project from now until Opening Day (or  for as long as I can stand it): come up with three songs a day that would be completely inappropriate as walk-up music.

Paint yourself a mental picture: You’re 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:

* “Poker Face,” Lady GaGa

* “Caught a Light Sneeze,” Tori Amos

* “The Loadout,” Jackson Brown