Editorial: It’s A Game, Not A Concert

It seems like singing Take Me Out to the Ballgame during the 7th inning isn’t enough. There must be singalongs to songs like Sweet Caroline. A great tune…but as a Mets fan, I don’t need the drunken guy from Massapequa screaming it in the 8th inning after 9 beers.

Personally, as a sports fan and a music fan, I’d rather hear nothing. I don’t go to Shea Stadium to hear Whoomp There it Is, Who Let the Dogs Out or Snaps’ I’ve Got the Power. Those songs sucked in 1995 and there’s no reason to revisit them at a baseball game.

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I remember as a kid going to Yankee Stadium, where the sounds of silence are still mostly preserved, and hearing nothing but Eddie Layton on the Hammond B3 organ and the crack of the bat.

Now each guy has his own song sequence. One for his first at bat. Another for his second at bat and so on. Each closer has his own anthem. Teams have brought in DJs or bands to “liven up” the scene at their ballparks. Aren’t the games themselves enough?

The sports world has been engulfed by the entertainment world and the results are Usher owning part of the Cleveland Cavaliers, Terrell Owens in Us Magazine and Jay-Z representing the New Jersey Nets at the Draft Lottery.

There is a common acceptance that all entertainers, in some way, want to be a athletes and vice-versa. That’s a fine assumption…but how they assumed every sports fan is a bad music fan is beyond me.