Baseball players’ choice of walk-up tunes connects performance to crowd

Joshua Kelley did not get to choose what blasted over the Rose Bowl loudspeakers when he took the field last fall.

Jaylen Hands never got to play his favorite song for the crowd when he jogged over to the substitution table at Pauley Pavilion.

But at Jackie Robinson Stadium, every Bruin gets to control one thing – their walk-up song.

“It’s like a science for us – we start picking them out in September and then we don’t even play until February,” said junior infielder Ryan Kreidler. “Half the battle is for yourself, half the battle is for the fans. If you play a song that you like, but the fans hate, it doesn’t really do the job.”

Following the tradition unique to America’s pastime, each player on No. 1 UCLA baseball (45-8, 22-5 Pac-12) picks their own song that plays every time they make the trip from the on-deck circle to the batter’s box.

Senior outfielder Jake Pries said he and his teammates are big fans of Travis Scott – but instead of picking “Sicko Mode” or “Butterfly Effect”, Pries decided to go a little off the beaten path.

“I thought it would be pretty mainstream to do a song from (Scott’s) last album, so I dug deep and went for a past album,” Pries said. “I kind of like ‘Coordinate,’ it has a good rhythm.”

The players stepping up to the plate aren’t the only ones who pay attention to the songs.

Sophomore outfielder Garrett Mitchell said each Bruin in the dugout has his favorite and least favorite songs to hear and that the songs are a fun part of the game for the team.

“It’s just another part of the game, but at the same time, you’re kind of listening between every at bat,” Mitchell said. “There’s some walk-up songs where you’re like, ‘These are really good,’ and some of them are like, ‘Ugh, I don’t want to hear this anymore.’”

But according to Mitchell’s teammates, one of those songs people are sick of is his choice – Rick Ross’ “Idols Become Rivals.”

“Well we know Garrett Mitchell has the worst song,” Kreidler said. “But whatever he’s doing is working, so maybe I’ll try that one next year.”

Mitchell – who improved his career batting average from .280 to .328 this year – said even though he picked his song, the managers in the press box cue up the song at the wrong time, so he hasn’t been too pleased with it either.

“They won’t change it because it quote-unquote gets everyone hyped in the dugout, so I’m stuck with that same part of the song,” Mitchell said. “I don’t get to switch it, because if I could, I for sure would.”

Junior second baseman Chase Strumpf, a self-proclaimed music expert and enthusiast, said he always keeps his ears open in the dugout.

“Me and a few other guys, we actually have a big passion for music, so we actually care, we put time into (picking our songs),” Strumpf said. “And then other guys are like, ‘Hey, can I get some help? Toss me a song,’ and I’ll throw it out there.”

One of the players who needed a bit of help with his walk-up song was junior first baseman Michael Toglia.

Toglia hit .336 with 11 homers last season, but he opened 2019 with a new song – “Another Day in Paradise” by Quinn XCII – and a sharp decline in production at the plate followed.

In the 15 games before the start of Pac-12 play, Toglia was hitting .207 with nine RBIs and no home runs, so the first baseman turned to volunteer assistant coach Niko Gallego to give him a hand.

“I didn’t choose my walk up song,” Toglia said. “When I was struggling earlier in the year, I gave it to our coach Niko Gallego … so he took that out of my hands and then he went with ‘Sleeping on the Blacktop’ – couldn’t tell you who it’s by, but I roll with it.”

Now, Toglia is batting .316 with a career-high 13 homers.

And while Kreidler wasn’t willing to call the walk-up song decision process pure superstition, he did say he and his teammates typically take a slump as a sign to switch things up.

“That’s usually why guys change it,” Kreidler said. “Like (senior infielder Jake Hirabayashi) has Nickelback, I couldn’t really tell you why he’s doing that. (Changing songs) is not really superstition, but (my song) just gets me right when I walk up to the plate.”

Hirabayashi’s choice is not the only song that stands out from the sea of trap, rap and country music. Freshman catcher Noah Cardenas’ song is The Outfield’s 1985 hit “Your Love”, and Strumpf is in a similar boat.

Every time the infielder steps up to the plate, an EDM remix of the 1978 soul classic “September” by Earth, Wind and Fire plays, a choice Strumpf said he left up to his parents this time around.

“Every year, I go for a song that’s kind of happy and just kind of groovy a little bit,” Strumpf said. “I like it sometimes, sometimes I don’t, but my parents said they would like it in the crowd, so that’s what I went for.”

So while the Rose Bowl may seat just shy of 100,000 fans, the crowd at Jackie Robinson Stadium will always have Bruins connecting with them through their favorite music – new or old.