Choose your at bat music.

Do you ever think about at bat music? I do. Probably too much for someone who never has any. I'm not sure when I became interested in it. Maybe a few years ago when I learned that players could choose their own music. (From what I've heard over the years, I think almost all players choose their own, although I think there's at least one player who just told the sound guy to pick something.)

Naturally, I've thought about what I might pick. I mean, you can go a lot of different directions. You could just pick your favorite song. You can try to pick lyrics that are really meaningful to you and maybe even carry a message you think is worthwhile for everyone else to hear. But maybe you just want a song to pump you up. Maybe you could find a song that touches on all of those criteria. You might even want to get clever with a song related to your name. (ESPN The Magazing recently did a thing on at bat music and gave examples where players did this.)

I've spent a lot of time the last two summers at local baseball games played by college kids. It's always fun to pay attention to what they play. It's heavy on hip hop and recently popular songs. But there's also the occasional country song. And the year before last, someone even had "New Age Girl" by Dead Eye Dick. You may know it as the song with the lyrics, "she don't eat meat but she sure likes the bone."

Anyway, I'm not hip hop-crazy, and actually find a lot of the lyrics ridiculous and stupid, if not completely worthless. I have learned, however, that the right hip hop song can be really good at bat music. One of the guys this last year had the beginning of Jay-Z's "Encore" played when he came up. Like virtually every rap ever created, I'm pretty sure the whole song is just about how awesome the artist thinks he is. Super lame. (Yeah I know everyone loves Jay-Z and hip hop is huge, but you know what? I don't like most of it. Deal with it. And even when I do like a certain line or verse or beat, the rest of the lyrics are usually so off-putting that the net effect is neutral at best. But this blog's not about that so I'll just leave it there.) Anyway, my point is, by the end of the summer, I was hooked on that 10 to 20 second clip of that song. It's got that mix that seems just right for walking to the plate: a good beat with a little cockiness thrown in.

For my choice though, I'd probably steer clear of the hip hop.
I'm pretty sure I'd go with something rock. The kind of song that makes you move. Not dance, necessarily, but something with at least one big moment that makes you want to bob your head or do some air guitar or air drum.

But before I say what I'd pick (as if I know anyway), I'm calling for some participation.

What would you choose as at bat music? And really, not just what song, but what part of the song? Because that's really what it would be. 10 to 20 seconds probably. Which is almost a completely different question than if it were a whole song. And, if you can, include a brief explanation of why you picked it.

I think the tougest part for me might be narrowing it to just one. If you spend enough time, you can come up with all sorts of ideas. I think some players rotate, but for the purposes of this discussion, I suggest trying to narrow it to one, and then giving two runners-up if you have some.