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At bat music

Forget Take Me Out to the Ball Game. Devil Rays players pick rap, rock and reggaeton to get themselves — and their fans — pumped up at the Trop.  

By SEAN DALY
Published April 9, 2006

It was power vs. power, star against star, Boston Red Sox hurler Josh Beckett unloading 95-mph heaters at Tampa Bay Devil Rays slugger Jonny Gomes. It was only a spring baseball game, but the at-bat drama was juicy.

Normally, the pitcher has the upper hand; hitting a baseball is about the hardest thing to do in sports, especially one thrown by the likes of Beckett. But at the Rays’ spring home of Progress Energy Park, the 25-year-old Gomes had some extra help against his archenemy from the American League East.Help from rapper Jay-Z, no less.

Seconds before Gomes crushed a Beckett pitch for a home run — a gargantuan blast Rays manager Joe Maddon later called a “gorilla hack” — Rays audio engineer Billy Heald cued up Numb/Encore, a rap-metal duet by Jay-Z and Linkin Park that raged from the ballpark’s speakers as Gomes approached the plate.

Gomes picked that song himself. It’s his secret weapon. It’s his at-bat song, and you’ll probably hear it every time he comes to the plate tonight for the Rays’ home opener at Tropicana Field.

“It’s kind of like a mood swing,” Gomes says about Numb/Encore (sample lyric: “Now can I get an encore, do you want more? Cookin’ raw with the Brooklyn boy. So for one last time I need y’all to roar”).“When the song comes on,” Gomes smiles, “it loosens me up.”

Baseball is the rare arena in which players can soundtrack their individual moments. (At least at their home parks; on the road, the visiting star is liable to get serenaded by the Little River Band’s Lonesome Loser.)

When there’s homefield advantage, the music matters. A lot. As they walk to the plate, Rays hitters muscle up to their favorite songs. As they jog in from the bullpen to extinguish a late-inning rally, Rays pitchers favor cuts that introduce them as a live cannons. (Think Wild Thing from the movie Major League.)

And if the songs the Rays pick also inspire the bleacher bums, so much the better.

Gomes used Numb/Encore last year when he was a candidate for the rookie of the year award. He’s pretty sure he’ll use it this season, too, although there is a dark horse candidate. “It’ll either be Encore or Cypress Hill’s (Rock) Superstar,” says Gomes, who was also flirting with Girls Girls Girls by Motley Crue. (“I was thinking about it,” he adds with a sheepish grin.)

As he prepared for opening day, Rays star outfielder Carl Crawford was confident about his hitting, fielding and running. What he wasn’t so sure of was his at-bat song.

“Right now, it’s between Young Jeezy and Juvenile,” says  rap connoisseur Crawford, 24. “I try to pick something for both me and all the fans. A song for both of us to relate to when it comes on.”

Shortstop Julio Lugo isn’t as generous. The speedy leadoff hitter is in charge of getting on base and setting the pace. So when you hear some thumping reggaeton from duo Wisin & Yandel at the Trop, that’s the sound of the 30-year-old Lugo trying to get his own motor running.“That’s just for me,” says Lugo. “It pumps me up. The flow of the song works for me.”

Lugo feels so strongly about Wisin & Yandel, he’ll keep them playing them “no matter how I’m doing.”
Same goes for outfielder Damon Hollins. These days, the 31-year-old is digging Oakland rapper E-40’s hit Tell Me When to Go (“Some Henny, some Swishers and some Listerine strips, Dr. Greenthumb lips, just to ease my thoughts”). “I’m gonna ride that one all year long, no matter what,” he promises with a defiant nod.

On the tamer side of things, starting pitcher Doug Waechter, the pride of St. Petersburg, is a Christian rock fan. His preferred pump-up song is Jeremy Camp’s Take My Life (“Here I am before you now, I’m like a child reaching out”). “I play that for me,” he says. It should be noted, however, that Waechter, 25, is also an Ozzy Osbourne nut, with such not-so-Christian ditties as Crazy Train and No More Tears also in heavy iPod rotation.

Speaking of Apple’s digital-music devices: Almost all of the Rays sport iPods, transforming how music is played in the clubhouse. In the old days, a star player would rule the radio. Now the ballplayers can plug in iPod ear buds and zone out on their own, either chilling in the clubhouse or working out in the training room.

How many songs you have on your iPod is a matter of pride. Gomes tallies about 4,200 tunes. Hollins has about 2,200. When asked for his song count, Waechter looks wounded and says, “Only 75.”

Of course, not all of the Rays are so iPod-savvy or, for that matter, music-minded. There are a few quirky exceptions.“IPod?!” says utility infielder Ty Wigginton. “I barely know how to sign online.” Wigginton, 28, doesn’t really care about his at-bat song, either. “I just tell them to play something rock. Something that hits hard. My wife usually tells me what they played after the game.

”And don’t even get the 75-year-old Don Zimmer started on iPods. When asked about the hip technology, the Rays senior baseball adviser, celebrating his 58th year in baseball, says, “iPod?! I don’t even know how to spell iPod!”

If Wigginton and Zimmer spend enough time around manager Joe Maddon, however, they just might get a musical education as well as a baseball one. The Rays’ 52-year-old rookie skipper is nothing less than a music junkie, and his genre-spanning tastes, from Pavarotti to the Stones, might make him the most musically savvy manager in baseball.

Maddon cherishes his iPod, which was a gift from Garret Anderson of the Los Angeles Angels, where Maddon previously coached. But in the Rays clubhouse, the bespectacled manager also likes to jack up his office speakers for all to hear. These days, he’s been rocking to his beloved Bruce Springsteen, especially the live gem

Hammersmith Odeon, London ’75.

One of Maddon’s most cherished memories involves a train trip through Italy, “in a dining car all by myself, with a bottle of vino, some prosciutto” — and the Boss warbling on his iPod.

So it makes perfect sense that, when asked what song he’d like sound man Heald to play when he leaves the Trop dugout — be it to wave to the crowd or pull a pitcher — Maddon thinks only for a second.

“Springsteen,” says the man in charge of turning the Rays into winners. “Land of Hope and Dreams.”

Sean Daly can be reached at sdaly@sptimes.com or (727) 893-8467. His blog is at www.sptimes.com/blogs/popmusic.

[Last modified April 9, 2006, 21:39:39]