Starting Lineup: Worst At-Bat Song Choices

In an effort to find a suitable complement to the always humorous Milk Carton All-Star of the Week, Gabe and I have come up with a new weekly piece called "Starting Lineup". The concept behind Starting Lineup is that we will pick a topic each week, and then Gabe and I will list our top 9 choices for that particular topic.

This week, we've chosen to explore the world of baseball intro music and unveil our "Worst At-Bat Song Choices". Here goes:

Dave:

1. Anything by Miley Cyrus: The genesis of this idea was sprouted from the numerous reports that some Major League Baseball players have been using "Party In The USA" by Miley Cyrus as their at-bat music(Marlin center fielder Cameron Maybin being one of them). My advice? Don't. This is Major League Baseball, not a celebrity softball game sponsored by Disney. I don't care if you have more children than Antonio Cromartie, Miley Cyrus as your walk-up music is just plain wrong. AC/DC has an extensive enough catalog for you to find something to jam to on your way to the plate, you don't have to try to lure in kids with some annoying, cheesy pop tune. That's R.Kelly's job.

2. "Tears In Heaven" by Eric Clapton: After Miley Cyrus, songs 2-9 could have went in any order. They are all either drastically depressing(like this one) or overwhelmingly homoerotic. "Tears In Heaven" is definitely a beautiful song and there are definitely appropriate times for one to utilize this heartfelt melody: They're called funerals. The fact is, "Tears In Heaven" isn't a happy song. It's not overly riveting and it's certainly not something that is meant to motivate you to clobber a 92 mph fastball into center field. If I'm paying 40 bucks to sit in the nosebleeds and watch you play a kid's game, I don't want to feel like I'm sitting in the back row of an Irish wake.

3. "I Wanna Sex You Up" by Color Me Badd: Pretty much self-explanatory. No dude should want to trot out to this song. This song wasn't even sensual enough to impress the ladies back in the day, so you know it has no place on a baseball field with a bunch of dudes. Sure, maybe it works if you want to weird the pitcher out, but if I'm the mound and you're strutting out to this garbage, I'm playing some music of my own and it might involve a baseball rocking off your dome.

4. "Everybody Hurts" by R.E.M.: Again, like "Tears In Heaven", this song is slow and depressing. You don't want to play baseball to this song. You want to sit up in your attic, crying into your pillow while trying to knife your wrists to this song.

5. "Genie In A Bottle"/ "What A Girl Wants" by Christina Aguilera: It was a tough call to pick between either of these songs, so I went with both. No dude should come out to a chorus talking about wanting to be "rubbed the right way". As for "What A Girl Wants", unless you're Jennie Finch, you better tell the DJ to go play some 50 Cent.

6. "Wicked Game" by Chris Isaak: Besides the fact that this is meant to be a love song, it's also dramatically slow and really annoying to listen to. First of all, Chris Isaak sounds like he's fractured his fibula when he's bellowing during the chorus. Helen Keller would hear this song and tell you to turn it down. It makes "Yesterday" by the Beatles sound like "Let's Get It Started" by Black Eyed Peas.

7. "American Pie" by Don McLean: Again, the depressing theme strikes. Not only that, "American Pie" is pain-stakingly long, so trying to find the proper 10-15 seconds in this dreck is next to impossible. Sure, it's a nice song to sing at karaoke and, maybe in a sentimental time, it would be fun to sing on a road trip, but at a baseball game? No dice. You'd be better served playing "Cotton Eyed Joe".

8. "She's All I Ever Had" by Ricky Martin: Right about now, you probably don't want to be a masculine male athlete listening to Ricky Martin in your car, let alone sauntering out to home plate to this garbage. Besides, Ricky Martin singing "She's All I Ever Had" is about as big a pile of bullshit as Gabourey Sidibe singing "I'm Too Sexy" by Right Said Fred. Look, I don't want to offend the two or three homosexuals who may read our website, but even gay dudes know the message you're sending when you choose a love song by a gay Latin pop singer as your entrance music: It means you have an interest in playing catcher in more ways than one.

9. "White Flag" by Dido: There were plenty of options for the final choice. "Drive" by The Cars got some consideration. So did "Touch Me, Tease Me" by Case and "Freak" by Adina Howard. To me, though, "White Flag" isn't just depressing, it almost lets out an admission of feeling defeated. "I will go down with this ship"....you really want that echoing through the stadium in the bottom of the 9th of a close game? Like I said, you can Google any depressing love song and slap it on this list here and you could have put any of these songs in any order because they are all morally deflating. You know when the right time to play "White Flag" is? If you just had a terrible break-up....and you're 16....and it's the night before prom. That's it. If you're an athlete, a well-trained physical machine, bumping Dido out of the PA system while you're heading out of the on deck circle will draw more suspect looks and childish giggles than crowd excitement and opposition intimidation.

Gabe:

I'm going to go in reverse order...

9. Any song from an Ipod/Iphone/Ipad commercial: Most of these songs are in the indie rock vein. There are a lot of bands from Brooklyn and bands of that ilk featured in these commercials. I'm not saying these songs are bad, in fact quit the opposite. I identify with that scene to a large degree. I like a lot of music coming out of Brooklyn, but.....they don't work for a baseball game. At bat music should be something loud, upbeat, and at minimum a little aggressive. This is professional sports we are talking about. The speaker systems are loud. The fans are in various states of inebriation. They aren't going to appreciate the subtleties of the latest TV on the Radio single. (Although Wolf Like Me is still bad-ass.)

8. "Swing Swing" by the All-American Rejects: This song is mild middle of the road....ok it's really because it says "swing swing swing" in the chorus. You don't want batters hearing that and swinging aimlessly. (Thank my wife for this entry.)

7. "Gasolina" by Daddy Yankee: Because reggaeton sucks out loud and this song is representative of the whole genre. It's the musical answer to a question nobody asked.

6. "Ruff Ryders Anthem" by DMX after 1999: Especially if you're white. Nuff said.

5. Anything by a former Mouseketeer: Dave talked about two Christina Aguilera songs earlier and I'm going to expand that to include any of their post-Disney work. Most of it sucks and none of it has a place at a ballpark...except for post-N'Sync Justin Timberlake. Don't act like you don't nod your head to "Rock Your Body." It's ok, we all do.

4. "Pick-up Man" by Joe Diffie: I'm using this song to represent all bad country music, something I'm surprised Dave didn't do. No down-home, twangy, bad metaphor country music has a place in America's...wait, maybe country music does fit. At least make it good though, like the Avett Brothers.

3. "Baby" by Justin Bieber: This should be self-explanatory but in case it isn't...he makes teenage girls squeel and cry, which is not exactly the kind of thing I want to be thinking about when I'm three beers deep at a ballgame.

2. "How To Save a Life" by The Fray: The band sucks. This song sucks. It leads off with a tinky piano line that isn't going to get anyone hyped.

1. Anything by Nickelback: Anyone who knows me for more than a day knows that I reserve a special, seething, white-hot hatred for this band and their shitty music. Any player who uses a Nickelback song should be taken off the field immediately, banned from baseball for life, and be subjected to random sustained sessions of Chinese Water Torture.