Take Me Out (Symphonic Remix)

It's Opening Day for baseball fans across North America, and that makes it one of those days that I'm very glad to have a job where I work weekends and get Mondays off. Sarah and I sport a fair amount of allegiance to the Phillies, having both spent good chunks of our lives in the ironically nicknamed City of Brotherly Love, but I've also been a Twins fan since my grandfather showed me how to dial in Herb Carneal on his kitchen radio, so I'll be swinging by the MetroDome plaza later today to check out the madness and dream of open-air baseball, one short year away.

Meanwhile, I've been trying to think of a good musical parallel to draw to the season opener, and bemoaning the fact that, while everyone wants to write poems, odes, tributes, and even symphonies to the glamour teams (Cubs, Dodgers, Yankees, Sawx, etc.) those of us who root for outlier teams (even World Champion outlier teams - sorry, couldn't resist one last gloat) generally have to make do with horribly cheesy, if locally beloved, anthems.




Worse, some teams on the cusp of greatness try to stir fan emotion by commissioning new fight songs in whatever hideous musical vernacular is popular in TV ads at the time...



Seriously, that song existed. I remember hearing it and cringing during the '91 Series. And really, the problem here is that these embarrassing attempts at commercially manufactured musical excitement lack the timeless quality of Take Me Out To The Ballgame or Casey At The Bat.

So here's my thinking: there's nothing more timeless than a lot of the music we play on stage every week at Orchestra Hall, right? Furthermore, silly electric guitar riffs and hyper-vibrated pop star renditions of the national anthem aside, there's really nothing more musically powerful than a symphony orchestra in full cry. So why don't more teams make use of our kind of pump-up-the-volume moments? Just imagine, the hush falling over the crowd as the anthems are over on Opening Night, and this plays underneath the obligatory gauzy video about the coming of spring, the reawakening of grass and infield dirt...



...then transitioning to this as highlights of the previous year begin to play on the big screen...



...and finally, as the players take the field, the sound system erupts with...



...okay, yeah, you're right, this is Minnesota, and that might be a bit ostentatious. Let's just dial that back a notch...



Now, tell me you don't want to see Justin Morneau, Denard Span, and the boys taking their places to that. 'Cause I do.