Walk-up mood swings part of sound strategy
Here’s how the right music can make hitting a bit easier — Barney and Martin know
Game day comes with a very specific soundtrack for Darwin Barney.
If the Blue Jays utility infielder is in the lineup, he’ll start out listening to classical piano — an instrument he also plays.
About 45 minutes before game time, after eating and before loosening up to play, he’ll switch to something more peppy, such as EDM-pop duo The Chainsmokers.
And when he steps up to the plate at the Rogers Centre, he’ll go with a more subdued walk-up song — these days, it’s Stephen Marley’s “Hey Baby” or Bob Marley’s “Natural Mystic.”
“I want to be relaxed — not thinking about stuff, not feeling any anxiety about swings — and then from there you turn that into competitiveness, aggression, whatever you want to call it,” the 31-year-old Barney says.
He chooses Marley melodies for their laid-back beats.
“It’s not too fast. If (the beat is) too hard, I’m going to walk to the plate too amped up and I’m not going to be able to control my breathing,” he said. “So for me it’s more like: What rhythm do you want to take up there?” he says.
Music plays a big part in any athlete’s preparation, according to sports psychologists. It blares in clubhouses before and after a win — silence after a loss also has an impact — and it’s not unusual for players to lose themselves in their headphones before the action begins.
The choice of walk-up music for home dates says something about the player, but no matter what they go with, it acts as an important signal: time to perform.
“At the most basic level, it’s conditioning,” says Dr. Kate Hays, a clinical psychologist and expert in sports psychology as well as the emerging field of performance psychology. “Pavlov’s dogs. It’s a matter of people, whether it’s the player or the spectator, saying, ‘Ah, this is this person’s moment.’ ”
Beyond that, she says, a walk-up song can help a player reach peak performance: “Some players do much better feeling a sense of anger; some do much better with a sense of peaceableness. So it can be both the psychological and the physical, and the interaction between the two.”
To Russell Martin, it’s all about pos- itivity. His intentions are clear every time he makes his way to the plate. You just have to listen.
“I feel it coming. I feel it coming, babe,” goes the tune by Canadianborn singer The Weeknd (ft. Daft Punk) as the Blue Jays catcher covers the short distance from the on-deck circle to the batter’s box.
The 34-year-old Martin started the year with Kid Cudi’s “Surfin,” then went 4-for-39 at the plate. He needed a change.
“I kind of had a slow start to the season and I feel like I’ve been having better at-bats lately. So whenever I hear that, it’s like a positive message that keeps playing in my mind before going to the plate,” Martin said recently. “It’s: You’re right where you need to be. “It’s positive. It’s as simple as that.” Barney doesn’t change his tune based on performance.
“I changed it once to a Spanish song (“Que Lo Que” by Sensato ft. Papayo) just because all the Latin dudes on our team played it and I really liked that song,” he says.
“They were like, ‘You want to do it?’ I was like, ‘Yeah, I’ll do it.’ So I changed it to that for one day. I had a good day, but I’m not going to keep it. It’s not like, even though I had two hits that day I better keep it.”
Psychologist Ray Karesky, who worked with the Blue Jays in the past, warns players not to get too caught up in the benefits of a particular tune.
“It’s great when you have it at home and it pumps you up, but you don’t want to be so dependant on it that you can’t perform without it. That would be counterproductive,” he says.
Karesky adds that how much of the song is played — walk-up music usually blares for about 15 seconds — doesn’t affect the impact on a player: “If it’s a player’s song and they’re attuned to it and they associate it with ‘get ready,’ even a 15-second (clip) might get some of those neurons firing and the brain going. It’s like sometimes you smell something and the brain lights up.”
Karesky and Hays agree that, in general, swapping one jam for another could help a player snap out of a slump.
Ken McLeod — associate professor of music, history and culture at the University of Toronto and author of We Are The Champions: The Politics of Popular Music and Sports — also buys that theory.
“You’re going to change those rituals,” McLeod says. “You’re going to do something just a little bit differently to get yourself out of it. That may be the music and how you feel about coming up. If that song’s gotten stale for you then yeah, you’re going to change it up.”
He adds that the choice of music reveals something about a player beyond the boxscore, which can help build a connection with fans.
The whole notion of walk-up music began in 1970 — according to a 2015 New York Times report— when Nancy Faust, organist for the Chicago White Sox, started playing the state song of each player as they stepped to the plate. It wasn’t until the mid-1980s that walk-up music became the player-driven phenomenon it remains today.
A song isn’t likely to have much of an impact on the opposition, McLeod says — and that includes walk-out music when a pitcher enters, made famous by former Yankees closer Mariano Rivera and his selection, “Enter Sandman.”
But there are situations when it could deliver an edge.
“Everybody else is a professional and everybody else is used to the songs being play. But if it’s a new pitcher, or if it’s somebody that you haven’t faced before, and your walkup music comes on and it’s threatening, it might put somebody a little off their game,” McLeod says.
Martin’s choice of “I Feel It Coming” won’t intimidate anyone. But after launching the game-winning home run against the Rays on Wednesday night, he feels it’s doing the trick.
“I’m going to keep it until it fades,” says Martin. “Once it fades, I might change it. Hopefully it lasts the whole year.”