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Braves organist plays the perfect walk-up music for Blue Jays’ Reese McGuire, who was arrested for public masturbation this spring
Walk-up music is both a gift and a weapon. At your home park, it can strike fear into the hearts of your opponents. It can herald the coming of certain victory. Just ask Yankees fans about “Enter Sandman” if you really must. On the road, however, it’s a completely different story. In the hands of a clever sound engineer or a capable organist, music can be used against you. Maybe it’s Hall & Oates' “Maneater” just after a messy public breakup. Perhaps it’s “Cold As Ice” in the middle of a slump. But whatever the tune, it can’t hurt nearly as good as what the Atlanta Braves’ organist did to the Reese McGuire on Thursday night, playing Michael Jackson’s “Beat It” as the Blue Jays’ catcher stepped into the box.
This is notable and perfect and hilarious because, as you may recall, McGuire was arrested for public masturbation in a strip mall parking lot near the Blue Jays’ Spring Training complex earlier this year. McGuire plead no contest to a second-degree misdemeanor charge and eventually walked away with a $450 fine, but when video of the arrest surfaced this week, McGuire found himself back in the news. Unfortunately for him, the Braves organist also saw the headlines.
You could have gone a little more subtle here. Billy Idol’s “Dancing With Myself” immediately springs to mind. Or you could go full on-the-nose with the Divinyls’ “I Touch Myself." But sometimes low-hanging fruit is the ripest, and you’re not going to find anything more immediately gotcha than "Beat It." Plus how many of these other songs have a face-melting Eddie Van Halen solo jammed in the middle of them? Zero. Zero is the answer.