Overlooking downtown Los Angeles and nestled in the hillside of the Chavez Ravine, Dodger Stadium ranks as the third-oldest continually used park in Major League Baseball. Home to a team that – much like America’s earliest settlers – moved West, the Los Angeles Dodgers command the adoration and respect of their fans. Even though they haven’t won a World Series in almost 30 years (1988), their roster contains some of the biggest names in the sport.
Clayton Kershaw, Chase Utley, Adrian Gonzalez, and many others make up the Dodgers lineup, and they are just the type of MLB stars you’d want to see from the team closest to Hollywood. Not only do these players see their names in lights as they walk up to the plate, but they also hear songs that speak directly to the person under the cap. Here’s the music that brings the Dodgers out to play.
Fa-La-La-Land Tunes
Unlike a pennant chase, this musical competition wasn’t even close. Of the listed walk-up songs for 18 Dodgers players, the hip-hop/rap genre tops the charts. In fact, there are three players who have four-song rotations during each game. Catcher Yasmani Grandal loves hip-hop and rap, and also happens to be one of those four-song rotation players. You might not know which song he’ll be walking up to, but all of them are of the hip-hop/rap genre. From Bobby Shmurda’s “Hot Boy” to “Trap Queen” by Fetty Wap, Grandal’s walk-up songs account for more than 20 percent of this genre.
With one of the most diverse musical lineups, three-time Cy Young award-winning pitcher Clayton Kershaw chooses electronic, rock, and hip-hop tunes to accompany him to the plate. Using Blackstreet’s “No Diggity,” Technotronic’s “Pump Up the Jam,” and “We Are Young” by Fun., the Los Angeles Dodgers ace shows off an appreciation for a wide range of musical tastes.
Los Angeles is home to more than 9 percent of the United States’ Hispanic population, but Latin music ties with rock in the Dodgers’ selections for walk-up music. In fact, there are only four Latin tracks in the rotation, and two of them come from Adrian Gonzalez’s list. The first baseman walks out to “El Mariachi Loco” by Mariachi Vargas and “Vamonos de Fiesta” by Banda El Recodo.
More Music
Kid Cudi, Pitbull, 2Pac … and Johnny Cash? The Dodgers love rap and hip-hop, but there are a few outliers in their walk-up music. In a “whatever works” scenario, it’s less about which particular songs are picked and more about whether a song helps to get a player in the zone before an at-bat.
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Sources
- http://losangeles.dodgers.mlb.com/fan_forum/ballpark_music.jsp?c_id=la
- http://losangeles.dodgers.mlb.com/la/ballpark/information/index.jsp?content=history
- http://www.baseball-reference.com/teams/LAD/
- http://mlb.mlb.com/mlb/history/postseason/mlb_ws_recaps.jsp?feature=1988
- http://www.cbssports.com/mlb/news/clayton-kershaw-wins-third-nl-cy-young-award-in-last-four-years/
- http://www.pewhispanic.org/2013/08/29/mapping-the-latino-population-by-state-county-and-city/
