Pump Up The Jam

One of my favorite topics that blends sports with pop culture and gives some insight into the personality of athletes is entrance songs. Back in college when I hosted a sports talk radio show I used to ask my guests what song they would choose to walk up to the plate to if they were a big leaguer. I covered the songs I would consider in October of 2010. Well last week while I was working on The Scott Van Pelt Show, Scott, Ryen Russillo (his co-host), and their guest for this particular segment, former NFL quarterback Tim Hasselbeck, had an impromptu discussion about what song their high school basketball teams took the court to. I forget what Scott said, but Ryen and Mr. Elisabeth Hasselbeck, both white guys from Massachusetts, said Jump Around by House of Pain. Very fitting. My cousin who will not be named even though he’s been named a few times on this blog was a big hooper in high school. In fact, he was a walk on at Fairfield during our freshmen year of college. I don’t recall what his high school team’s entrance song was, but I remember him telling me about a team they played that came out to this…


The team entered the court at about the :20 mark

Now obviously everyone didn’t play high school basketball, so I think it’s fair to broaden this discussion to the songs that were on your high school football/soccer/basketball/hockey/baseball/lacrosse warm up tape. The interesting thing about team warm up songs is that it’s usually only a few people that select the songs for the entire team. This means that more often than not the captains, or elder statesmen on the team, both made the pregame mix tape and had control over the stereo in the locker room.

My first relevant memory to warm up music is as a 7th grader playing modified football. We didn’t play our games on a field with a sound system, so the music we played in the locker room was near and dear to our hearts. I kid you not the 8th graders played this song on repeat before and after every practice and every game all year.



I’m pretty sure it was the only song that was played in the locker room the entire season. FYI- We might have had 1-2 black kids on our entire team.

I don’t remember what we played in the locker room when we were 8th graders, but that was our only chance to choose for ourselves until our senior year because the JV and Varsity football teams shared the same locker room. At my high school the football team had t-shirts made every year with a motto on the back. More often than not the motto was the name of a rock song that was used to pump the team up. One year it was Welcome to the Jungle. Another year it was Seek and Destroy. Obviously the locker room was filled with plenty of Guns n’ Roses and Metallica those years.

Here are a few other songs that were played ad naseum in our locker room and in the stadium during pre-game warm-ups.

Metallica- No Leaf Clover


Excalibur Theme


Ozzy Osbourne- Crazy Train


Disturbed- Down With the Sickness


Disturbed- Are You Breathing?


System of a Down- Toxicity


System of a Down- Chop Suey


AC/DC- Hells Bells

By the time senior year rolled around my friends and I had grown so accustomed to these songs that many of them stayed on our pre-game mix. They became so ingrained in my head that even to this day when I hear No Leaf Clover by Metallica I can’t help but think of stretching and doing calisthenics. I don’t actually stop what I’m doing and start stretching (although that’d be like Pavlov’s experiment on crack). I just picture myself doing the stretches and drills as a scrawny 17 year old.

I left out a few songs that were on our pre-game football CD because some of them are a part of my personal top 3 pump up songs of all time. I became so attached to two of the following three songs that I made sure that they were on our pre-game lacrosse CD as well. The last song, my number 1 pump up song of all time, didn’t come out until halfway through my senior year football season, but it was prominently featured on our lacrosse mix.

3.) Metallica- Enter Sandman



I hate the Yankees, but I respect the shit out of Mariano Rivera. If this song doesn’t make you want to run through a wall and tackle someone then there’s something wrong with you.


2.) AC/DC- Thunderstruck



My body becomes so filled with adrenaline when I hear this song before an athletic event that my body starts shaking when I hear the lyric, “I was shaking at the knees.” Quick sidenote, I recently learned a drinking game set to this song that’s a lot of fun. Find a group of 4-6 people (you can do more, but it will take longer to get drunk) and select who will go first. The person who has been picked to start begins drinking at the first “Thunder” and keeps going until the next “Thunder”, which is when the next person starts to drink, and so on.


1.) The White Stripes- Seven Nation Army



As Deadspin recently noted, this song has conquered the sports world and I’m proud to say that I was getting amped up to the bass line from the get go. This song got me so fired up that I was in a trance like state after hearing it. I became a very aggressive, violent person shortly after warming up to this tune.


What song did your highschool basketball team enter the court to? Or what was on your high school warm up CD?

Batter Up

There are obviously a lot of things that I like about sports. I mean, it's hard not to like the drama, the competition, and the performance. Professional athletes are just on a whole nother level both physically (I can't dunk or hit a curveball) and mentally (no chance I'd make a free throw in a packed arena). That said, they are also human beings just like you and me (do I have to credit US Weekly?). It's not often that we get to see the human side of athletes, so when we do I relish the opportunity.

This is one of the many reasons that I love entrance songs. Entrance songs give athletes a chance to show a little bit of their personality. Baseball players (hitters and closers) either pick a song that they enjoy or one that pumps them up. This selection either tells you a little bit about each player or makes you wonder about them. Does he like rap? Oh, a country song. Is he from the South? Can't say I'm surprised that the player from the Domincan Republic went with the Salsa beat. Every so often an athlete and their entrance song sort of become one. What I mean by that is that when I hear the song I think of the athlete. For example, when I hear "Numb/Encore" I think of A-Rod. Also, when I hear "Enter Sandman" I look around to see if Mariano Rivera is going to come running out of nowhere.

This glimpse into the mind of a professional athlete is fascinating to me. In fact, back when I was the host of my own low/no budget college radio show I used to ask callers what song they would pick to walk up to the plate to.

Now naturally I've also long contemplated what song I would choose if I was walking up to the plate or coming in to close a game and on last night's episode of Eastbound and Down Kenny Powers stole the song that was the leader in the clubhouse for me....



I don't know if it's my love for America, my admiration for Hulk Hogan, or what, but that song has a weird power over me. I turn into an animal whenever I hear it. It's hard to explain, but I've done some crazy things while that song has been playing.

While that song would no doubt be my pick if I was a professional baseball player (although after last night I'd have to reconsider because some of the luster is definitely gone), I did have the opportunity to pick an entrance song back in college. No, I wasn't on the baseball team, although I did successfully convince at least a dozen people that I was. My intramural softball team (The Sal Ciaccio Memorial All-Stars) had walk up songs (as well as music to play inbetween innings). As the manager of the team, I asked each player to pick a walk up song of their choosing (some changed for each game) and then I arranged the songs according to the batting order on a CD to make it easy on the girls who sat in the stands and played them for us.


Yes, those are champagne bottles

Obviously it's key to select a song that has a cool opening. I mean, I cued up the chorus for some people's selections, but I think it's best to stick with the actual beginning of the song. That said, after dabbling with a few songs I went with this '80's classic.


(:16 to :28)

Other songs I considered:

Nirvana- Come As You Are- Not only do I like the beginning of the song, but I also love how the title and lyrics seem appropriate for the situation. In essence the batter is saying that they are coming to the plate as they are. This is also why I lovvved when Manny Ramirez came to the plate to Ready or Not by The Fugees.

Aerosmith- Sweet Emotion - Just a cool beginning.

Guns 'N Roses- Sweet Child O' Mine- I probably would have went this song if our meathead cleanup hitter (love ya Hoff) didn't already choose it.

Other songs that my Sal C's teammates went with:

Ram Jam- Black Betty

Dr. Dre- Bang Bang

Kanye West- Homecoming

Billy Squier- The Stroke

Cam'ron- Suck It or Not (1:52- 2:03)

Wisin y Yandel- Rakata (:24-:38)


So now I ask you. If you were a professional baseball player (or intramural/company softball player) what song would you walk up to the plate to?

Free Dr. P

Don't forget that tomorrow is that day that you can sign up to get a coupon to redeem a free 20 oz. Dr.Pepper because of the release of the new Guns 'N Roses album Chinese Democracy.

Check out this Dr. P related blurb from Esquire earlier this month.

Now for all of you lazy people out there, here is what is written in that article.

This special formulation of Dr. Pepper is made from imperial cane sugar. And you can only get it within a 44-mile radius of Dublin, Texas. It's hard to espouse tradition without sounding like Wilford Brimley grunting the virtues of oatmeal, but old pop is better than new pop, and that's just facts. In the 1970s and 1980s, when the price of sugar began to rise, most bottlers switched over to high-fructose corn syrup--except the Dr. Pepper bottling plant in Dublin, Texas, the only DP plant never to have used anything but Imperial pure can sugar to sweeten its unique brand of black gold. It's like drinking nature's perfect candy, plus fizz. The hitch is, it's available only within a 44-mile radius of Dublin. While it probably isn't worth the drive to west Texas to taste it--a ranch filled with crazy pussy probably isn't worth the drive to west Texas--if you're passing through Comanche, Desdemona, or Fairy, make sure you stop for a cold bottle of the last best pop in America.


First of all, I think I'm going to go ahead and add imbibing about fifteen of them Dr. Peppers to my lifelong to do list. Secondly, a ranch filled with crazy pussy is definitely worth the drive to west Texas. Hell, my friends and I almost drove 3 plus hours to New Jersey on a whim because none of us had ever been to a Sonic. Not only does their food look great, but I'd even give them my business because of their outstanding advertising.



Let me just clear one thing up. There is no denying that they have great commercials and in that sense their advertising is outstanding, but the fact that these commercials run in areas that are nowhere near their restaurants detracts a little from their overall advertising scheme.

Don't forget to request your free Dr. Pepper.

Just what the doctor ordered

Tomorrow is Halloween and for the first time in my life I will be dipping back into the well of former costume choices. Two years ago I was at a loss for ideas and my creativity was running on empty. It was the Saturday before Halloween and there was a few parties that we planned on going to so a roommate and I went to the Salvation Army to look for any sort of idea that we could muster. We came up with nothing significant there so we went to the mall, which of course was packed with every 6 year old in the county. We had some near impulse buys, but came away from the costume store empty handed. At this point it was about 2 hours into the search and my roommate suggested that we just go to Spencer's and get a bunch of stupid stuff. I of course asked, "But what will we do when someone asks what we are? His response was, "We'll just say, "I'm having a good time. Great party." So that's what we did. We both got hats, I had an enormous link chain and a skull staff. He had a scarf, a necklace of mini penises, and we were both wearing clothes we got at the Salvation Army. Some people kept asking, but we just never gave in. Some people thought that we had to be something and they just didn't know what it was and were too embarrassed to ask. And some people absolutely loved it.

When Halloween night actually rolled around, I was in the shower preparing for another night of "I'm having a great time. This party's awesome" when a not so clever idea came to me. I decided to be Dr. Pepper. Dress as a doctor and wear my Dr. Pepper shirt. A terrible play on words, but that's what I went with. A lab coat, blue pastel pants, and a doctor's mask later and I was Dr. P.

Last year I was a makeshift Axl Rose and sure enough someone dressed as Slash was at the bar and a mini photo op ensued.



This year I'm going back to the Dr. Pepper because of my affection for the product, but this time I went out and got the doctor costume (green scrubs) and will just wear my Dr. Pepper shirt underneath (and will probably expose it somehow).

Now with all this Dr. Pepper and Guns N' Roses talk I feel that it is appropriate to mention that everyone in America can receive a free 20 oz. drink on November 23rd (23 flavors) because Guns 'N Roses will be releasing their new album "Chinese Democracy" before the end of the calendar year. Officials at Dr. Pepper challenged the band back in May with this promotion because of the long standing anticipation for the album's release.

http://www.courant.com/features/food/hc-webgunssoda.artoct31,0,7962445.story

It's good to see two things I love teaming up, but before we go any further, Chinese Democracy? Those Commie bastards have been trying to scam us for years with this People's Republic of China malarkey.

China's flag



The flag of the Soviet Union



I love how Guns 'N Roses are making a statement to the Chinese. And that message looks a little something like this.