Don’t Like Pop Music at Baseball Games? Blame the Pirates

(Source: Rolling Stone)

High and Tight: Our Rock & Roll Baseball Experts Take On Pop Music at Ball Parks

Tom Morello, Scott Ian, Ben Gibbard and other rocker fanatics sound off on our national pastime

Seventy-one years ago last week, workers dragged an organ into Wrigley Field  before a Saturday afternoon contest between the Chicago Cubs and the St. Louis  Cardinals, hooked it up to the ballpark’s P.A. system — and for the first time  in major league history, fans were treated to organ music during a ballgame. The  concept quickly caught on throughout the majors, as other teams began hiring  their own organists; by the 1950s, live organ accompaniment had become as  integral to the ballpark experience as the aroma of hot dogs, peanut shells and  spilled beer. But in the late 1970s, contemporary pop music entered the  ballpark, and things got complicated.

Blame it on Sister Sledge — or rather, the Pittsburgh Pirates intern who  began spinning the group’s Nile Rodgers-produced disco hit “We Are Family” at  Three Rivers Stadium after every Bucs victory during the summer of 1979. Since  then, pop recordings have increasingly (and often jarringly) dominated the  soundscape at ballgames.

Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/high-and-tight-our-rock-roll-baseball-experts-take-on-pop-music-at-ball-parks-20120502#ixzz1tljSLUCV

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