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WSJ.com
When the Mets' Willie Harris hunches over the iPod in his locker, as he seems to spend hours doing, he is not just going through the clubhouse motions of killing time before a game. Very deliberately, almost subliminally, he is sending messages to his teammates. This song, he tells them through the music and a cranked up speaker, should accompany one of you to the batter's box. This song is you.
Harris puts hours of thought into those 30 seconds of at-bat music, not just for himself, but for everyone he plays with. If he hears a song that might suit someone, Harris makes it his job to plant the idea in his teammate's head by playing it when he is nearby.
"When you're a utility player, man, it's so much more than on the field," Harris said. "You're a utility player in the clubhouse. These guys, they don't have time to listen to music like I do."
Harris, who has over 6,000 songs on his computer, said he takes on the job of at-bat-music-consultant-in-chief wherever he goes. At any given time, he guessed, there might be half a dozen players throughout the league coming out to songs he suggested, including his clubhouse neighbor Jose Reyes and the Milwaukee Brewers' Nyjer Morgan. The only players he can do nothing for are those in the mood for a country song.
Players select anywhere from one to five songs to play before their at bats, sometimes rotating with each turn at the plate. Most of the time, they are set at the beginning of the season and do not change much after that.
But for those who like to mix things up—players like Reyes and Harris for the Mets, Russell Martin and Nick Swisher for the Yankees all have that reputation—the process is simple. They burn a CD with the relevant clips or write the song names on a scrap of paper and give it to a member of the public relations staff. From there, the change is run upstairs to the person in charge of the public address system and the change is made.
Perhaps surprisingly, Major League Baseball does not have strict guidelines governing walk up songs. It only specifies that the music must be over by the time the batter reaches the dirt cutout surrounding home plate. As for the content of the song, baseball leaves it up to the clubs to "use good judgment."
While it may seem like a fairly insignificant piece of the baseball routine, image-conscious ballplayers relish the chance to express themselves as the spotlight shifts to them at home plate. And most tastes are accounted for.
Latin and Caribbean music are healthily represented from merengue, to salsa, to the Puerto Rican dance beats of reggaeton. Hip-hop is a permanent fixture—Jay-Z is by far the most popular artist in the Mets' and Yankees' lists. Metal and grunge fans get their chances to rock out, too (The Mets' Jason Bay has "Alive" by Pearl Jam as his standby song). And players from the South tend to provide the country and western elements (Brett Gardner of the Yankees uses Jason Aldean's "Dirt Road Anthem").
"We always rag on Gardy, because he's got a country song when he comes to the plate," Swisher said. "But that's him, man, he's a country boy."
New releases usually find their way into the mix as well (the Mets' Justin Turner comes out to a song by Lupe Fiasco that was released less than a year ago). And every so often a player will turn back the clock with a song older than he is. The best example is 25-year-old Lucas Duda, who comes out to the sound of Jimi Hendrix grinding out All Along the Watchtower in 1968.
And finally, there are the wild cards. On the few occasions he has to bat, Mets pitcher R.A. Dickey, a self-confessed Star Wars nut, borrows his walk out music from Darth Vader—the Imperial March by John Williams.
It all depends on a player's taste and what he expects his song to accomplish.
"Some of them have meaning to me," Mets' outfielder Angel Pagan said. "Some of them I use to keep myself positive, you know, pump me up a little bit when I'm going to hit. Sometimes I just put a salsa song for my wife."
Of all the major leaguers in New York, Reyes probably has the most involved selection process. For a period of about two weeks during the offseason, he conducts research. That means reviewing his extensive music collection, polling his friends, and casting a wide net for new music. He said he has to weigh "what is hot, what is in the moment," what might be popular with fans and what contains "some positive message for the people."
"It takes me a long time to figure it out, because it has to be perfect, man," he added.
Reyes, who moonlights as a reggaeton singer and owns a record label, has used some of his own songs in the past. At various points in his career, he has also tried to boost some of his buddies in the music industry by including their songs in his rotation.
The pick of the bunch—and certainly the most original—must be the track a friend of his recorded for him in 2008. The clip Reyes selected, to the casual listener at least, seemed to only feature two words: Jose and Reyes, repeated over and over again to a merengue beat. According to Reyes, though, there was a little more to it in the rest of the song, which told of his fleet-footed adventures on the base paths.
These days, Reyes has five different songs that accompany him to the plate. The latest addition—a mid-season callup—was "Otis" by Jay-Z and Kanye West, which also happens to be Derek Jeter's song of the moment.
Naturally, it was a carefully planted Willie Harris selection.
"He's been on the DL for a while and the song is about, 'I got my swagger back, I'm back,'" Harris said, referring to Reyes' series of injuries. "It was the perfect song for him."
Of course, not everyone takes it quite as seriously. The Yankees' Andruw Jones said that he could not remember half the songs he has used in his 16 years in the majors, while the Mets' David Wright claimed he did not know what his at-bat songs even were—this season, he let his brothers pick them out.
Then there are those hitters who pick one song and seem to stick with it for their entire careers. The same brassy riff has introduced Jorge Posada for years. And for nearly his entire stay in Flushing, Carlos Beltran would announce that he had arrived with "El Esta Aqui" (He Is Here).
When it comes to poor choices in at bat songs, the former Yankee Nick Johnson always gets a mention. He came to the plate to Miley Cyrus's "Party in the USA," reportedly because it was his daughter's favorite song. "But I've got to give him credit," Swisher said. "If I have a daughter, I'll do the same thing for her."
Still, neither Swisher, nor anyone else in the Mets or Yankees' clubhouses said they would stoop far enough to use what might be the single worst at bat song on record. Pagan said he had heard it during his days it in the Mets' farm system and belonged to a teammate he declined to embarrass in print.
It was the theme from "SpongeBob Squarepants."
"SpongeBob?" Pagan said. "What's crazier than that?"
The Baseball Jukebox
Here are the songs the Mets and Yankees have selected to play at their home stadiums when they come to bat:
Mets Artist
Jose Reyes Jay-Z & Kanye West — "Otis"
Justin Turner Lupe Fiasco — "The Show Goes On"
David Wright Beastie Boys — "Sabatoge"
Jason Bay Pearl Jam — "Alive"
Angel Pagan Tiempo — "Mas Poderoso"
Willie Harris Field Mob, Jamie Foxx & Ludacris — "Georgia"
Scott Hairston Paper Boy — "Ditty"
Daniel Murphy Dropkick Murphys — "Shipping Up to Boston"
Lucas Duda Jimi Hendrix — "All Along the Watchtower"
Ike Davis The Rolling Stones — "Start Me Up"
Yankees Artist
Derek Jeter Jay-Z & Kanye West — "Otis"
Curtis Granderson Busta Rhymes — "Put Your Hands in the Air"
Mark Teixeira Twisted Sister — "I Wanna Rock"
Alex Rodriguez Jay-Z & Kanye West — "Welcome to the Jungle"
Robinson Cano Pitbull — "Give Me Everything Tonight"
Russell Martin RJD2 — "Ghost Writer"
Nick Swisher Mann — "Buzzin'"
Brett Gardner Jason Aldean — "Dirt Road Anthem"
Andruw Jones Ace Hood— "Hustle Hard"
Eric Chavez Grandmaster Flash— "The Message"
Jorge Posada Hector Lavoe — "El Dia De Mi Suerte"
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