When Walk-Up Music Walked Tall

The seeds were planted on the South Side of Chicago in 1913, when the White Sox installed a public address system. Only three years old at the time, Comiskey Park was renowned as “The Baseball Palace of the World.” The park was originally dubbed White Sox Park, so it might be that Charles Comiskey wanted to make sure that once the ballpark bore his name it would be up to date in terms of amenities.

To achieve this, he might have cut corners on player salaries, which is usually proffered as one of the causes of the 1919 Black Sox scandal. I’m not saying that loudspeakers were responsible for that watershed event, but there might be a correlation. Let’s classify it as a subject for future research.

Hard to believe, but even today not all venues have P.A. systems. Among them is my local community college. Unless you come prepared with a printout of the rosters or a smartphone, you will never know who’s on first…or anyone anywhere else on the field. Without a P.A. system, there is no national anthem (the field has neither flag nor flagpole anyway). And there is no walk-up music – and I’m OK with that. In fact, I wouldn’t mind if it disappeared from ballparks everywhere.

My suspicion is that walk-up music became popular because batters were jealous of closers who got to play their favorite mojo-rising music (e.g., “Hell’s Bells” for Trevor Hoffman, “Wild Thing” for Mitch Williams, and “Enter Sandman” for Mariano Rivera) as they jogged in from the bullpen and warmed up on the mound.

So it has come to pass that every MLB batter gets to select his own walk-up music, and it plays not just his first time at bat but every time. And for people who care about such things, team web sites will inform you as to each player’s musical selection. Some (for all I know, maybe all) scoreboards at MLB parks tell you the song and “artist” involved as the music plays. Unfortunately, at many games the P.A. announcer attempts to recite the name, number, and position of the batter while the walk-up music is playing, so the former is muffled by the latter. Making out what the announcer is saying is not unlike deciphering mumble rap emanating from a loudspeaker at a Jack-in-the-Box drive-thru.

The walk-up phenomenon has metastasized from MLB ballparks to minor league ballparks to college ballparks to high school ballparks. I have heard that even Little League is not immune, but I haven’t attended any games at that level in a long time, so I cannot verify that. I would not be surprised to find out that it has spread to T-ball leagues.

Not to sound like a snob, but the musical taste of most ballplayers is lacking, to say the least. Most of them just choose some sort of contemporary popschlock. Given the almost infinite possibilities of recorded music – classical, Gregorian chants, Indian ragas, Celtic rock, TV show themes, big band, jazz, surf rock, blues, R&B, folk, bluegrass, movie soundtracks, etc., it is hard to understand why most ballplayers go with the lowest common denominator. On the other hand, I understand why they never choose show tunes – not even from Damn Yankees. That would start tongues wagging, albeit sotto voce.

Despite my lack of enthusiasm for walk-up music, I must admit that I have wondered what I would pick if I were a ballplayer. My first choice would be a fanfare, like the ones that used to play over movie logos in the golden age of Hollywood – Warner Brothers, Twentieth Century Fox, or MGM. Another source would be Biblical epics or sword-and-sandal movies with “Hail, Caesar” fanfares. As for something completely different, how about what is probably the most famous “composition” of avant-garde (or avant-fraude?) composer John Cage (1912-1982)? His 1952 opus, 4’33”, consists of four minutes and 33 seconds of total silence.

Classical music does not lend itself to sound bites, but there are a few pieces that get down to business right from the first bar: Mozart’s “Eine Kleine Nachtmusik,” for one; also the opening of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony; or “The Flight of the Valkyries” from Wagner’s Die Walküre. The latter worked for Colonel Kilgore (Robert Duvall) in Apocalypse Now. You remember that guy…“I love the smell of napalm in the morning. Smells like victory.” A batter could paraphrase him by saying, “I love the smell of scalded cowhide in the afternoon. Smells like a 15-degree launch angle.”

Like many aspects of major league baseball, walk-up music has changed over the years. Originally, it was live, not pre-recorded. It caught your attention and sometimes evoked a chuckle. This was more than half a century ago in the waning BDH (Before the Designated Hitter) years; or, if you go by the Gregorian calendar, 1970. As it turns out, the venue that introduced the PA system is also credited with the introduction of walk-up music, or intro music as it was then called. When that happened, however, Comiskey Park (actually, the name had reverted to White Sox Park) was no longer the Baseball Palace of the World – far from it.

In 1970 the White Sox finished last in the AL West with a 56-106 (the most losses in franchise history at that time) record. The season attendance was 495,355, last (12th) in the American League by a wide margin. The 11th-place Kansas City Royals were almost 200,000 ahead of them. But there was more to worry about than the won/lost record:

A bad team is one thing; a bad team in a bad ballpark is a double whammy; but the White Sox were a bad team in a bad ballpark in a bad part of town – correction, the baddest part of town, according to songwriter/singer Jim Croce, who led off “Bad, Bad Leroy Brown” (1973) with the lyrics, “Well, the South side of Chicago is the baddest part of town.”

The crosstown Cubs had assumed a higher profile, relegating the White Sox to second team status in the Second City. Ultimately, the Cubs disappointed, but the Friendly Confines of Wrigley Field and the Wrigleyville neighborhood remained hip, happening places. Both Wrigley and Comiskey were old (the former opened in 1914, the latter in 1910), both were designed by the same architect (Zachary Taylor Davis), and both were accessible by the Red Line trains of the CTA. Other than that, the two parks had nothing in common.

The White Sox played a number of “home” games in Milwaukee from 1967 through 1969, raising fears among the South Side faithful that the franchise was already heading for the exit. I wouldn’t be surprised if White Sox players were using down time during those “home” games to research metro Milwaukee neighborhoods in the event of relocation.

You might think promoting the White Sox in 1970 would be a public relations challenge at best, or a nightmare at worst, but Stu Holcomb, then the team’s Public Relations Director and later the General Manager, was up to the task.

While the franchise was at its lowest ebb, Holcomb discovered Nancy Faust, who was working as an organist at a local restaurant. I wasn’t present at any of her prandial performances so I can’t say what brought her to Holcomb’s attention – though I understand she played a mean “Moon River.” Yet the hiring of Nancy Faust – I’m tempted to call it a Faustian bargain – was probably the best PR move in White Sox history, and one of the best in all of pro sports, though it was hardly headline news at the time. Given the team’s shortcomings, there were more pressing personnel matters to be addressed.

Organ music had been a fixture at White Sox games since 1960 when then-owner Bill Veeck hired Shay Torrent, a well-known keyboardist in those days (a SoCal native, he later went to work for the Angels). By 1969, Bob Creed was the organist at White Sox games, but Holcomb gave him his unconditional release and signed Faust. FUN FACT: Chicago was the venue for the first marriage of organ music and sports, albeit indoors, as Chicago Stadium, home of the NHL Black Hawks, had organ music dating from its opening in 1929.

In her “rookie” year with the White Sox, Faust was 23 years old, the same age as several of the rookies (Rich McKinney, José Ortiz, Jim Magnuson, Don Eddy) on the roster. While those names have gone down the memory hole, her name looms large in White Sox history. One might say she was a “phenom,” though she was only recognized as such in the rearview mirror.

Faust was sound as to fundamentals. She could play the national anthem and “Take Me Out to the Ball Game” at the appropriate moments. All in all, her rookie season was acceptable, but no one could have foreseen that she was a legend in the making.

Initially, Faust’s sophomore year appeared to be 1970 redux, but the same could be said of the White Sox season in the early going. In a Thursday, May 6, 10-1 loss to the Red Sox the franchise set a record for lowest attendance: 511. If you think the weather played a part, you would be right, as the weather archive for that day lists “Showers of rain, showers of light rain, fog, fog and smoke, smoke.” Smoke? I thought the Chicago fire was in 1871, not 1971. Or did a volcano erupt in Des Plaines?

May 6 was clearly the nadir of the year, but from that point on, the White Sox played better than .500 ball, eventually finishing with a 79-83 record. Third baseman Bill Melton led the league in homers – the first White Sox player ever to do so – with 33. Wilbur Wood won 22 games with a 1.91 ERA. Another name to conjure with was Harry Caray, a longtime (1945-1969) St. Louis Cardinals broadcaster who had come to the White Sox after just one season with Charlie Finley and the Oakland A’s. Harry’s maxim of “You can’t beat fun at the old ballpark” might have been inappropriate when he arrived, but the arrival of Caray and Faust indicated that the corner had been turned. In 1971 there were hints that the funereal atmosphere that enveloped White Sox home games was dispelling.

1972 was a breakthrough year, not just for Faust but for the Sox. Manager Chuck Tanner, The Sporting News Manager of the Year, led the team into a pennant race. They eventually finished 87-67, 5½ games behind the A’s, who were on their way to the first of three World Series championships.

The acquisition of Dick Allen from the Dodgers was key, as he led the league in both homers (37) and RBIs (113) with a slash line of .308/.420/.603 and ended up AL MVP. His presence, however, also played a part in Nancy Faust’s career. What made Faust’s in-game performance memorable was her rendition of “Jesus Christ, Superstar” as his theme song.

Visiting players, of course, were not given such laudatory treatment. It wasn’t exactly disrespectful but more good-natured humor. Often the fans would have to put two and two together. It was essential to be familiar with pop music as well as the players. A good example was Carole King’s “I Feel the Earth Move Under My Feet,” which Faust played when Frank Howard (6’7”, 255 lbs) lumbered towards the batter’s box. When Carl Yastrzemski was in the latter stages of his career (he was 44 when he retired), she played “I’m Still Standing,” an Elton John tune.

In some cases, “getting the joke” was relatively easy. If Faust played “I’m Just Wild About Harry,” you knew it was in reference to Harry Caray. If she played “Love Potion No. 9,” it was likely that the batter stepping to the plate was No. 9. A pity Ted Williams was no longer around to respond to that intro. We know how he felt about the “knights of the keyboard” (sportswriters), but would he have been more chivalrous towards a damsel of the keyboard?

Faust was a key figure in a watershed moment in sports history during the 1977 season, though it was not walk-up music, it was walk-away music. In the last game of a four-game sweep of the Twins in an early July battle for first place, the White Sox faithful (96,564 for three openings) began singing “Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye” a 1969 offering by one-hit wonder band Steam. Instead of “na na na na, na na na na” the refrain became “Min-ne-so-ta, Min-ne-so-ta,” followed by “Hey, Hey, Good-bye.”

Later that month, specifically on Friday, July 29, pennant fever was taking hold on the South Side. The first-place (60-37) Sox were taking on the Kansas City Royals (55-41) the defending AL West champions, who were 3½ games back, in front of a standing-room-only crowd of 45,919. An 11-8 Sox victory sent the crowd home happy that night (the Royals eventually prevailed, however, repeating as AL West champions with a record of 102-60 while the Sox finished third at 90-72, 12 games behind), but the date also went down in baseball history as the first game when Nancy Faust played “Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye” on the organ. Notably, she played it late in the game when Royals pitcher Mark Littell (who eventually got the L) was removed when he couldn’t get anybody out in the 7th. And the crowd went wild – as have subsequent crowds at numerous sports venues ever since.

It would be nice to report that the tune inspired the Sox onward and upward, but it didn’t, at least not for a while. They never finished higher than third in the AL West until they finally won the 1983 AL West pennant in 1983, one year after Harry Caray had moved on to the Cubs. Then the Sox sank back into obscurity over the next decade till finishing first again in 1993. Through it all Nancy Faust was the common denominator. Players came and players went, but she stayed at her post, doing her best to create a party atmosphere at Comiskey Park all the way to the last game in 1990. In 1991 the party continued across the street at Comiskey Park II (changed to U.S. Cellular Field in 2003). Faust remained on duty through the 2010 season. During her four-decade career, she was without peer. Before she went to work for the White Sox, organ music was commonplace at major league ballparks, but the same could be said of funeral homes. In both venues the music was largely perfunctory and forgettable.

To challenge Faust, an organist would have to be well-acquainted not just with the local Mudville Nine, but also the visiting players; also essential is an encyclopedic knowledge of popular (as opposed to just pop) music and a repertoire to match. Finally, it takes a puckish sense of humor to match the players with appropriat3e tunes.

This is even more difficult than it appears at first blush. Some older tunes might resonate with the old folks but not the younger generation; or vice versa. Thanks to YouTube and classic rock FM stations, some old tunes still have currency. Even though it’s 60 years old, I think most people would recognize “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction,” a 1965 Rolling Stones hit. It would likely resonate with fans of all ages and would be appropriate for a batter in a deep slump. On the other hand, a more obscure oldie, “A Walkin’ Miracle” (the Essex, 1963) might fall on deaf ears if played as an intro, even though it would be appropriate for a big OPB guy like Joey Votto, who walked more than 100 times in six seasons.

Then there is the possibility that a visiting player might object to the music selected for him. A player who has undergone a recent brush with the criminal justice system might be offended by “I Fought the Law,” written by the Sonny Curtis of the Crickets, Buddy Holly’s former band, but made famous by the Bobby Fuller Four in 1964. A player who has just signed an insanely lucrative contract might object to the Beatles’ “Baby, You’re a Rich Man” (1967). Bench jockeying is one thing; organ jockeying another. At some point, an organist would surely push the envelope a little too far, creating a controversy du jour for the talking heads at ESPN.

Any ambitious young organist who can match Nancy Faust’s skill set will not come cheap. Unlike the skills of the players, these skills cannot be honed in the minor leagues where organists are rare if not nonexistent. In any event, team owners have figured out that canned music is a more economical way to get the crowd stirred up. An organist would require a paycheck and benefits. And an organ would have to be purchased and installed. A great way to enhance the fan experience, but does it pass the cost-benefit test?

As for Nancy Faust, I think it is safe to say we shall not see her like again, but these days, one has to ask, “Could AI do the job?” I dunno, but I wouldn’t be surprised if somebody wasn’t working on it. And if somebody is working on it, I’m not looking forward to it.

I’m not saying that canned walk-up music is the most off-putting aspect of the MLB fan experience. There’s plenty of competition in that regard. In fact, if I were a dictator/commissioner and I could ban canned walk-up music or ribbon boards, but not both, I would be hamstrung.

And you thought Sophie’s choice was a tough one.