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Organists
By Molly Millett, Saint Paul Pioneer Press
Besides apple pie, the American flag and baseball itself, of course.
This season, the St. Paul Saints have chucked their CDs and hired musician Andy Crowley of St. Paul to provide the live soundtrack for that classically American baseball park sound experience.
"It's really about fun, enhancing the game and, frankly, helping the Saints win," says Crowley .
Like that time he got a request from the dugout.
"The opposing team wanted me to play more Led Zeppelin, so I didn't play any more," says Crowley . "It was a close game, and I wanted to help the Saints ."
For years, ballparks and organ music have gone together like hot dogs and peanuts. The Minnesota Twins use an organ, too, as well as canned music. Both Chicago teams incorporate live organ music, and Nancy Faust, the organist for the White Sox, is one of the most well-known American baseball organists .
But organs haven't been in ballparks all that long in the great expanse of American baseball history. Tim Wiles, director of research at the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum in Cooperstown, N.Y., says he's never seen a Major League claim to the instrument earlier than the Chicago Cubs' claim that it was the first team to play organ music in the ballpark in 1941.
"Music at the ballpark, though, goes back further than that," says Wiles.
The Baseball Polka was written in 1858. And in the 1870s and '80s, when baseball teams would travel by train to games, they'd hire a band to accompany them in the carriage procession from the train to the ballpark.
Those musicians didn't play "Take Me Out to the Ball-Game" -- that wasn't written until 1908 -- but instead the popular tunes of the day. Ballparks also have provided marching bands for entertainment, and in the 1940s and into the 1950s, the Brooklyn Dodgers used musicians with instruments, such as snare drums and trumpets, to get the crowd revved up.
For the Saints , live organ music is part of a new approach. Until this season, the team used the public address system to pipe over canned music, sponsor announcements, batter information and more. Now, the scoreboard dispenses much of that game info.
"People's ears were bombarded," says Tom Whaley, the team's vice president. "Now, the sound of the game is totally different. So, because we left a lot of open space sonically, we thought, 'Wouldn't it be cool to have that traditional organ sound, simple and sparse.' It's about going back to baseball's roots. Now, there's time for the ears to breathe. And I have to say, sonically, I'm enjoying our games a lot more."
Crowley doesn't actually use a real organ (which the Twins do have). Instead, he operates a modern keyboard that has an old-fashioned organ sound. During a recent weekday afternoon home game, Crowley looked over the ballpark from his perch near the press box high above home plate. When a few people around him began hitting the stands -- anxious for the game to wrap up because the opposing team was catching up -- Crowley picked up on that and began imitating the sound. Reacting to Crowley , more people began slapping the stands.
"It's fun to lock into something like that," says Crowley .
That ability to improvise is a prerequisite for all baseball organists . For Crowley , it helps that he is an experienced musician. A regular gig with Comedy Sportz, an improvisational group, has especially helped Crowley with his own improv skills. (If you can't catch a Saints game anytime soon, you can hear Crowley at the Turf Club in St. Paul every Tuesday with the Mammy Nuns.)
Crowley peppers the Saints ' games with everything from classics like the baseball charge to special requests. When it is too wet outside, Crowley plays under the grandstand, 30 feet from home plate, "the best seat in the house," he says.
The Saints still play a CD of Sammy Davis Jr.'s cover of the "Shaft" theme song, since it's the Saints ' traditional rally song.
Lynn Tupy enjoyed Crowley 's music at that recent afternoon game as she sat in the stands with her parents and her two young daughters.
"CDs are just not the same," Tupy said. "This is more spur of the moment; he can react to great plays happening on the field.
She says she might not know the latest rap hits, but she is surprised at how many young baseball fans like the old classics on the organ. She thinks she knows why.
"Organ music is soothing, there's a lush kind of feel to it," she says. "The main thing I do is cheerleading. It's an improv kind of nothingness. People don't hear the songs as much as they do the sounds of the organ."
Call it baseball mood music.
Molly Millett can be reached at mollymillett@pioneerpress.com or (651) 228-5505.
Photo credit: The Minnesota Daily
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