Given his profound love for the guitar, Aaron Hill always enjoys hearing a good classic rock riff. Such pleasure is displayed every time the Jays second baseman steps to the plate at Rogers Centre, as his entrance music is blasted on the stadium speakers.
When Hill strides to the batter’s box, the unmistakable guitar licks of Foghat’s Slow Ride and Joe Walsh’s Life’s Been Good are his primary tunes.
Hill, 27, chose those songs at the beginning of the season and, to say the least, has had good luck with the selections.
“I like classic rock and I like those songs and always wanted to come out to them,” Hill said with a grin. “I had different ones over the years, but I picked these early and I’ll stick with them. There’s no reason to change them.”
That much is true, given Hill’s production as one of Toronto’s best hitters in 2009. Returning from last year’s season-ending concussion, Hill now leads the club in a number of offensive categories.
While Hill admits that sometimes he is too “locked in” to notice his entry music, he does enjoy the reaction it receives from fans.
“Some of the fans tend to really like the classic rock,” he said. “You hear them singing it every once in a while, which is neat because if you get them pumped up, it’s only going to help.”
While Hill enjoys rock music, rookie outfielder Travis Snider chooses to represent the hip-hop angle, with Paul Wall’s Break ‘Em Off and Birdman’s Get Your Shine On as his entrance themes.
Snider, who briefly used rock music while in the minors, believes opening songs can be important to some players.
“When you listen to your iPod as much as a lot of us do, you kind of go through playlists and certain songs that you listen to that get your mind in the right place,” Snider said. “For me it was one of those things where the rock music was about done and had no more hits in it, so I switched up.”
Entrance music
Artists in parentheses
• Aaron Hill, Slow Ride (Foghat) & Life’s Been Good (Joe Walsh)
• Adam Lind, If I Ruled The World (Nas)
• Alex Rios, Mujeres In The Club (Wisin & Yandel)
• Lyle Overbay, One (Creed)
• Marco Scutaro, Gasolina (Daddy Yankee)
• Rod Barajas, Ghetto Bird (Ice Cube)
• Scott Rolen, Viva La Vida (Coldplay)
• Travis Snider, Get Your Shine On (Birdman feat. Lil’ Wayne) & Break ‘Em Off (Paul Wall)
• Vernon Wells, Ambitionz Az A Ridah (2Pac)
