Bad Noise: The Art of the Walk-Up Song

Experience has its advantages, and in four years of covering baseball, I’ve learned to tune out the music that blares from the speakers of Citi Field and Yankee Stadium. It’s better this way. Considering the glut of “fan engagement activities,” shoehorned patriotism, and radio edits of already-censored pop songs that fill the inning intermissions, the sonic atmosphere at ballparks across the country is depressing, almost dead. It could be due to the ever-rising cost of admission pricing out a more culturally adept crowd, or the fact that good music may have been banned league-wide by an ordinance from the commissioner to get people to focus on the game. But I am going to lay the corpse at the doorstep of the players.