For those of you that are unaware, a "walkout" is the song that plays when a hitter comes up to the plate or when a pitcher warms up for the first time. It's equally as important as if you wear your pants up or down, the number on your jersey, or what color the tape on your wrists is...so SUPER important. Picking a good song is an art from, cause there are a lot of things that are involved in the selection and if you mess one of them up, a walkout can go from really well thought out and memorable to really bad and forgotten.
My friend and teammate Nick Bartolone had one of the best I've ever heard this past year; he was walking to "Last Friday Night"by Kati Perry. Some of y'all might think this is campy or not enough of a "pump up" song to be a good walkout, but that's exactly what made it so perfect. A walkout needs to be a good representation of who you are, and what kind of player you are, and if you can come up with a song that does this and is out of the ordinary then you've stumbled upon walk out gold.
When I was at Pepperdine, my first baseman Ryan Heroy, walked out to "King Kong" by Jibbs. This is still the best walkout I've ever heard. Heroy is 6'6" and probably 300 pounds, he would walk to the mound with a 34" bat in his hands that he had made look like a toothpick with "King Kong" bumping in the background. Perfection. He would be walking up the plate and on more than one occasion the opposing pitcher would be bobbing his head with the beat.
In picking a walkout you want to come up with a song that gets you going and hopefully will get a few heads nodding in the crowd. I try to pick songs that people will remember and therefore associate with me from then on; that is what Nick was able to do with "Last Friday Night". He still gets tweeted at with people saying that they just heard the song and they can't wait for season to start - Nick literally turned that song into a baseball anthem for some fans of Lake County simply by having it play for about 10 seconds while he walked from the on-deck circle to the batter's box.
My big brother famously (at least at my high school) walked out to "Sexual Healing" by Marvin Gaye. Now that is the kinda thing I wanna come up with for myself, a song that people wouldn't usually think would make for a good walkout song but when it comes on and I start firing balls to the catcher you realize you're bobbing your head and the songs works perfectly. The problem with going in this direction is that it's easy to miss, but what's life without a little bit of danger?
I haven't been able to pick one out just yet for myself, so far the frontrunners for me are R. Kelly's "Bump N' Grind" or "Ghetto Superstar" by Mya and Wyclef Jean. I'm waiting for that one song where when I hear I'll know instantly - I guess it's like finding love. I'm open to suggestions if y'all have any, feel free to tweet them at me (@C_M_Cook) or email me (colecook.soc@gmail.com). Till then it's a lot of listening the radio and keeping my iPod on shuffle. Thanks for tuning in and Go Tribe.
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