Strike Up The Band And Play Ball!

It's snowing heavily in Minneapolis today, which ought to be illegal, because as every baseball fan knows, today is Opening Day. It could be worse, I suppose - our local team still plays in a dome (which will mercifully change in 2010, when the Twins open their beautiful new limestone ballpark in the warehouse district,) so their first game of the year will go on as scheduled. Can't say the same for those cornerstones of the MLB hype machine, the Cubs and Yankees, who are both in extended rain delays as I type this.

(This kind of thing seems to happen a lot more to Opening Day games in recent years than it ever did when I was a kid, and as big a baseball fan as I am (I make and keep my own scorecards, and have since age 15; I obsess over every new issue of Baseball Prospectus as if I got paid to do so; and I actually pay money to read Bill James's latest screeds as soon as they're available,) I can't help thinking that the season would be better served by being a week shorter on both ends.)

Baseball is one of those games that inspires such love and devotion in its fans that it becomes something larger than itself, and transcends sport to become the symbol of an entire specific country. (Hockey, my other favorite pasttime, is the only other sport I know of that has this distinction.) Novels, poems, songs, and even symphonies are written about it, without the slightest hint of irony intended or received. To be honest, a lot of these cultural tributes leave me cold, not only because of their often painfully overwrought tone, but simply because I love the game of baseball more than I love the idea of baseball. I am not bored by pitchers' duels, and I do not find the seventh inning stretch more entertaining than a second inning at-bat in which the #8 hitter fouls off six straight breaking balls. I do not need a 45-page meditation on the smell of freshly oiled leather and the crack of ash against horsehide to remind me of what appeals to me about baseball.

Still, the writers, poets, composers, and songwriters keep churning out the paeans to the game, as well as to athletics in general, and that brings me to the reason for this post. In addition to my hosting and writing duties for Inside the Classics, I also serve as a semi-regular host of our orchestra's Young People's Concerts, and our education department is kind enough to give me a hand in helping to choose repertoire and design the programs I host.

At the moment, we're just starting to plan a show scheduled for spring 2009, and our focus is music's role in sports. After all, what would Monday Night Football be without that famous four-note theme that serves as its audio signature. Up north, Hockey Night in Canada has been using an even more widely known symphonic theme for more than forty years. Our very own Minnesota Wild commissioned a team anthem before ever taking the ice for the first time back in 2000, and it remains a tune that I am physically incapable of not singing along with. John Williams's Olympic March, written for the 1984 Los Angeles Games, is one of his best-loved orchestral works, and the orchestral swell Randy Newman penned to accompany Robert Redford's legendary home run at the end of The Natural is as familiar as any piece of movie music ever written.

So we've got a few ideas for what to do with this show. But I'm always looking for more, so I'm throwing this one open to you guys. Do you have any favorite sports memories that are tied up with specific pieces of music? Any works that you think perfectly encapsulate the thrill of victory or the agony of defeat? I'd love to hear 'em, so while you wait for the snow to stop and the first pitches to be thrown, fire away in the comments...