WHY I GET A KICK OUT OF YANKEE WALK-UP SONGS

Look, all the Yankees have them, songs that are used to introduce them at Yankee Stadium and get them psyched about their next at bat. I have always been fascinated with the process. How does it all work? Do the players sit in a dark room like the now famous Curtis Granderson video where he’s trying to pick the best intro song, but keeps running into disappointment?

Or does arrogance take over and do players just pick songs without thinking about what the words are really saying, For instance, I remember Alex Rodriguez had the song This Is Why I’m Hot. I mean, you have to balls to have that playing as you stroll up to the box at Yankee Stadium. ARod pulled that off, but many broke his chops about it.



One of my favorites of ARod’s has to be On to the Next One by Jay Z and Swiss Beatz. Love that song and I’ve used that expression in my blog plenty of times. It just works. Take a listen above.

Mark Teixeira is old school. He’s also obvious. He makes it no secret that he’s a huge Twisted Sister fan and he usuially approaches the plate to the tune I Wanna Rock. It makes me laugh if you think about that. He also used to use Bon Jovi’s Bad Medicine too:

Derek Jeter clearly is the man and he always uses great tunes, But my favorite has to be Stop the Party by Busta Rhymes and Swiss Beatz. The version on this post is offensive, so I'm warning you. That being said, the beat just works! It just works. Jeter is our Captain, let’s be honest, he could have You Light Up my Life by LeAnn Rimes and it would work…or maybe not.

I would have to say that my favorite walk up song of all time has to be Baba O’Riley by the Who for none other than the Warrior, Paul O’Neill. I have no idea if he was involved in that decision. He comes off as someone who doesn’t give a crap, he just wants to play, but whoever made the decision to use that song as Paulie walked to the plate is an absolute genius. Play the song, close your eyes and just picture mighty Paul walking up to the box. It gives me chills.

Look, there are a ton of other songs that are out there. Brett Gardner has used Crazy Town by Jason Aldean. I know that Nick Swisher used Beat Street by Grandmaster Flash and I love Curtis Granderson’s choice of Busta Rhymes Put your Hands Where My Eyes Can See. Several of them work, and on that rare occasion, they don’t. In the end though, my New York Yankees can use any songs they want… as long as they win.

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