Music as a Team Sport

Music has a place in the fabric of baseball. Ballpark personnel play walk-up songs before the #BoysOfSummer step into the box to bat. Other songs are played at traditional stages of a game, like pregame national anthems; “Sweet Caroline” before the bottom of the eighth inning in Boston; or “God Bless America,” “Take Me Out to the Ballgame,” and, for the Rangers’ seventh-inning stretch, “Cotton-Eyed Joe.” Musical entertainers sometimes throw out ceremonial first pitches. The Rangers often host mariachi bands amid the concourses at Globe Life Field.

We saw the two disciplines come together Thursday night thanks to a man who dearly loves both: longtime Rangers announcer Eric Nadel. In recent years, he’s taken to holding his birthday party as a charity concert event. This week marked the 14th such gathering and the radio icon’s 75th birthday. He had held it at the Kessler Theater until it outgrew that venue and now puts it on at the Longhorn Ballroom (216 Corinth St, Dallas, 214-272-8346).

In his opening remarks, Nadel talked about turning his friends on to bands they might not have known about before. You’ve quite possibly relied on Nadel to enlighten you about newly promoted Rangers prospects or elevated pitch counts but perhaps didn’t know he could also enlighten you regarding exceptional singers and guitarists.

I had a rudimentary awareness of Chuck Prophet but didn’t know he played live under Chuck Prophet & His Cumbia Shoes. And Sammy Rae & The Friends, an American jazz-pop band from New York, burst onto my radar as the headliner. Apropos of this particular special issue you’re holding in your hands, she is out on tour promoting her new album, SUN.

Speaking of pitch counts, both of those words fit into both musical and baseball lexicons, and they’re not alone. We might call a fastball up and in “chin music.” Knuckleballs are said to “dance.” Position players and instrument players both seek “hits.” From banjo hitters to bandboxes to a 1-2-3 double play (which some have called a “Lawrence Welk” after the late band leader), baseball and music share terminology. Former Major Leaguers George “Piano Legs” Gore, “Fiddler Bill” McGee, and Steve Sax make the association even more plain. Hardball and hard bop seem to be pretty complementary.

We sometimes say baseball has a rhythm to it.

One of the favorite commercials I ever created during my time working for the Rangers featured a music video in which we handed instruments to players from Central and South America for a “Latin Rhythm” theme designed to show Hispanic fans how deeply their cultures were embedded in the club’s fabric. The players didn’t have to actually be able to play the trumpets, congas, or guitars, by the way — the magic of TV.

Sometimes we say a hitter or pitcher looks to throw off their opponent’s rhythm. That concept speaks to the mental side of the game and might serve as a metaphor for another element of last Thursday’s Eric Nadel Birthday Benefit: Its proceeds go toward a mental health nonprofit. As Toadies recently made us aware, it is National Mental Health Month (“Turn on ‘The Charmer,’ ” Apr 29, 2026).

The Grant Halliburton Foundation (GrantHalliburton.org, 972-744-9790) seeks to promote better mental health, including by providing resources for young people. They also work to prevent suicides, a tragedy that took the life of the organization’s namesake. Baseball, too, has lost current and former players to suicide, including former Rangers Doug Ault, John Rheinecker, and Hideki Irabu.

As a Hall of Fame baseball play-by-play man, Eric Nadel is a master communicator about the sport. He has also been open about needing to pay attention to his own mental health challenges and uses his birthday event to communicate about that issue masterfully as well. And, of course, he loves to spread the word about bands he loves through this gathering. He certainly gave me plenty to think about. I came home and looked up both the bands in question and the charity.

For those of us who love the national pastime and also truly appreciate great base pl-, excuse me, bass players, like those in last Thursday’s lineup, music and baseball in combination are pretty great, at the ballpark and beyond.