Baseball has long been a sport of superstitions and traditions over the long, seemingly endless seasons, and the latest example of the lengths players will go to in getting their bats hot again comes to us from Oakland Athletics outfielder Josh Reddick. On Monday, Reddick chose the George Michael (or Wham!) slow jam “Careless Whisper” as his new at-bat music, because he just decided that it might be the song that would help him out of a funk. Sure enough, on Monday night he was 2-for-3 with a triple as the A’s topped the Chicago White Sox 5-4, and then last night he used the song again and was 2-for-4 with a home run in the A’s 11-0 drubbing of the ChiSox.
Hello, new at-bat music.
“Somebody had Pandora on shuffle in the clubhouse, and it got thrown into the mix. I was like ‘What would happen if I tried this?'” Reddick told Rolling Stone. “And baseball players are very superstitious, so I can’t imagine changing it for a while, unless something dramatic happens … and I hope it doesn’t.”
“It’s definitely escalated more than I thought it would,” Reddick laughed. “The fans are the funniest; it comes on and they’re cheering and slow-dancing in the outfield. They seem to be having more fun with my walk-up song that the actual game.” (Via Rolling Stone)
As we’ve seen before, when Reddick used Daniel Bryan’s theme music for his at-bats, A’s fans are used to making a scene when he’s at the plate. Additionally, Reddick is always one of the most entertaining guys at the ballpark, like when he offered his tribute to the Ultimate Warrior for Intentional Talk. But I have to say, after watching this clip from Reddick’s at-bat last night, that we’re not giving enough credit to how much pitcher Sean Doolittle was digging “Careless Whisper” as well.
