Walk-up songs help Mustangs get in their groove at Muzzy

Powered by their walk-up songs, the Bristol Mustangs dominated both games of their doubleheader at Muzzy Field.

Two summers ago, my baseball team in Connecticut was finally able to reserve historic Muzzy Field in Bristol for a Sunday morning doubleheader. Even though my Mustangs were in the midst of our third season as a Bristol-based 35-plus team, we had yet to schedule any games at the town's most venerable sports landmark.

Along with use of the 110-year-old ballpark, where none other than Babe Ruth once played, we were given access to the PA system and the scoreboard in the press box. To commemorate our Muzzy debut, I thought it would be fun to have walk-up songs for our players. But instead of doing them live, I wanted to figure out how to produce the walk-up songs in advance.

On my iPhone, I downloaded an app that would allow me to record my voice and to mix it with music. I then asked each player what song they wanted and got to work on what I would now consider my first-ever voice-over project.

I had requests for songs from Nirvana, AC/DC, Tom Petty, Van Halen, Metallica, and even the Godfather of Soul, James Brown, just to name a few. The most original was a request for “The Imperial March (Darth Vader’s Theme)” from Star Wars. It didn’t take long to get the process down, and soon I was able to produce one walk-up song in about 3 minutes.

The parents of a teammate handled the scorebook for us each week, so I asked if they could sit in the press box and play the pre-recorded walk-up songs, which I had loaded onto my iPad. Basically, as long as the iPad was plugged in correctly, all they had to do was press a button at the appropriate time. They were happy to oblige.

That morning, I got to the ballpark very early, went up to the press box and did a trial run on the PA system. It worked perfectly. So every time a Mustang player stepped into the batter’s box, and every time a new Mustang pitcher took the mound, their walk-up song played on the loudspeaker. It was a huge success.

Everyone loved the walk-up songs – except for the opposing team, which was no match for the Mustangs that morning. When I reached third base near the end of the first game (which we won 15-0), the third baseman was more than a little irritated. He walked over to me and said, “You know why we’re losing this game? We don’t have any songs.”

The highlight of the day involved Gary, our third-base coach. Gary was the only one who didn’t know about the walk-up songs ahead of time. He was quite surprised when he walked out to the third base coach’s box for the first time and heard his favorite song, “Free Bird” by Lynyrd Skynyrd, playing on the PA system, followed by this: “Coaching third base for the Mustangs … No. 3 … Gary Sparaco!” We all stood on the dugout steps and cheered for Gary, who – along with being shocked – absolutely loved it. And so did the Mustangs, who went on to win the second game, 14-4.

Now that I am a professional voice-over artist, perhaps I'll have a chance in the future to handle live PA duties for either a professional or collegiate sports team. While I would relish the opportunity, there are few things better than doing something that makes another person smile. And the priceless look on Gary's face made all the difference that morning at Muzzy.