(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.