I was enjoying a beautiful day at Nationals Park, taking in the national past time in the nation's capital. Then a stunning and strange thing occurred. My worlds collided.
I love sports and I love rooting for the Nats, my adopted home team here in Washington. I'm also a father of four children who love Disney movies and, like most American kids, have become obsessed with the mega-hit Frozen.
How did these worlds come together? After the Nationals Park announcer intoned "Now batting, the third baseman, number 4, Zach Walters," out of the stadium PA system came "Do you wanna build a snowman? Do you wanna go and play?"
Check out the Vine, I'm not making this up:
I was dumbfounded. At-bat, or walk-on music, is a relatively new tradition in baseball, but the song selections have become a part of the live fan experience. Can anyone imagine a late inning Yankee game over the past 15 years without hearing Mariano Rivera's walk-on anthem of Metallica's "Enter Sandman" blasting out of the speakers?
We now have an entire website devoted to the best at-bat music across the league. I'm partial to Ian Kinsler using Stevie Wonder's "Superstition" now that he plays for the Tigers in Motown. It's a nice nod to the town's past. I also like BoSox's Craig Breslow using "Cult of Personality" from Living Color. It's got a great hook and gets the crowd going. But what about this Frozen business? At first I thought it was some kind of hazing, or a prank. I used Walter's uneventful at-bat (the Nats did not have a good day at the plate on Sunday) to do a little research. Walter's Twitter feed is littered with Frozen references:
"Strong" like Elsa, "Positive" like Anna, "Happy" like Olaf.
— Zachary Walters (@Zwalters02) April 25, 2014
WARNING: Yes I know all the words to "Frozen" and will sing them to you
— Zachary Walters (@Zwalters02) April 17, 2014
I discovered he also uses the Oscar-winning Frozen song "Let it Go," which must really get the seven-year-old girls in the bleacher seats excited.
The Washington Post celebrates this as an admirable curiosity:
Whatever else Zach Walters does in his professional baseball career, he’ll always have this: he just has to be the first MLB player to have walked up to two different songs from Disney’s "Frozen."
Thrive Sports finds the situation worthy of ridicule, photoshopping Walter's face onto Olaf the Snowman from the film. They also answered my other burning question regarding the odd choice in music:
What’s somewhat curious is the fact that Walters is 24, and it doesn’t appear he’s got any children.
One is left with the only conclusion one can reach: That Zack Walter, professional baseball player for the Washington Nationals, is inspired ... nay ... PUMPED UP by hearing songs from a Disney animated film about two sisters and a snowman.
Not that there's anything wrong with that.