Major League Baseball

MLB stars seek hits for at-bat music

Published Sep. 16, 2011 1:00 a.m. ET

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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, The Wall Street Journal reported. 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 — from Latin and Caribbean music, though hip-hop to metal and grunge. Players from the South tend to provide the Country and Western elements.

New releases usually find their way into the mix, 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.

Read more here.

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