Walk-up tunes help fire up players
Sep. 16—W alking up to home plate in front of several thousand baseball fans, Riley Tirotta once found comfort in "The Joker," but now turns to Virgil.
Tirotta started this season playing pro ball in Vancouver, where his "walk-up music" was a snippet from the Steve Miller Band's 1973 song. With the New Hampshire Fisher Cats, who close out their 2023 campaign on Sunday, he has shifted from classic rock to hip hop.
Virgil is not an ode to the ancient Roman poet but a tribute to a 21st-century fashion designer.
"I just think it's a good vibe. It sounds good in the stadium," he said of the song, "What Happened to Virgil," by rappers Lil Durk and Gunna.
"I really just like the beat of the song when it gets going," said Tirotta, who was promoted to the Fisher Cats in May. "It's kind of like a slow intro and then it drops, the beat drops. I like that."
This is the infielder's fifth walk-up song this season.
"Sometimes, it just doesn't feel right walking up to the plate," he said before a game last week at Delta Dental Stadium.
"You might not get the same groove that the song gave you before or before it might have given you a little confidence, just gave you a little swagger walking up to the plate. And that can kind of burn out, especially if that walkup song runs out of hits."
Nearly every hitter and pitcher on the Fisher Cats roster has a walkup or game-entering song. Few places in Manchester offer such an eclectic mix of pop, rock, country and rap as the riverfront ballpark.
Production manager Amy Cecil orchestrates the walk-up music from her soundboard and computer screen. Each song starts low, increasing in volume after the PA announcer introduces the player.
It lasts all of 15 seconds or so.
"Some of them will rush into the (batter's) box and some of them take their time," Cecil said.
The players tell her what song to play and indicate where in the song to start.
She also checks for explicit lyrics, asking the player to choose a different section or another song if there's an issue.
The team provided a list of the song titles for 24 players. Six, including Tirotta's, had the notation "Clean" next to them.
"My mom wouldn't be happy with me," said the Indiana-born player. "She'd be like, 'Steve Miller doesn't have a dirty version of their song.' "
Starting pitcher Luis Quinones' song of choice is "P FKN R" by rapper Bad Bunny.
"He says in the song that he's from Puerto Rico. I've always been proud of being from there," said Quinones, who was born in the U.S. territory. "I'm going to keep using it as long as he doesn't come out with a better one."
Hearing that song, he said, gives him "an extra boost or adrenaline before starting the game."
Outfielder Will Robertson, a Missouri native, originally went with country singer Montgomery Gentry's "Where I Come From."
"Usually with walk-up music for me, it's always like what makes me feel good or gets me like happier or something that uplifts me a little bit," he said.
He said he has since requested "Your Love" by The Outfield, his mom's favorite.
Don't worry if you don't know the lyrics.
"If you ask my wife, I don't know a lot of the words to a lot of the songs that I'm singing," Robertson said. "I sometimes think that my lyrics are better than the ones that are actually in the song, but I think I might be the only one that thinks that."
