From Fetty Wap to AC/DC, Royals take different approaches to walk-up music

With spring training winding down, the Royals have some important business to take care of before opening day.

While the front office trims the roster and the coaching staff fashions a depth chart, the players are left to work on something that will follow them every time they head to the batter’s box at Kauffman Stadium — their walk-up music.

For some Royals, walk-up music is vital to getting locked-in at the plate. Lorenzo Cain blasted Fetty Wap’s hit “Trap Queen” in his all-star campaign last year, and he said it’s going to be a challenge to find a song that can hold up to his expectations.

“When I’m walking to the plate, I’ve got to be feeling the music,” Cain said. “It’s something that amps me up, gets the crowd into it, gets myself into it. It’s definitely going to be tough to top (“Trap Queen,”) but I’ll figure something out.”

Despite Cain’s connection with his music, he said he hasn’t picked his walk-up song for next year yet. Alex Gordon, on the other hand, is well-prepared. Gordon said he’s picked one song that he plans on using all year — just don’t expect to find out what it is until Opening Day.

“I’m definitely not going to tell you,” Gordon said. “I like to wait until day one and let people find out. It’s a new one this year, and I will give you one piece of advice — it’s not rap. But I won’t tell you what it is.”

Gordon’s shift away from rap this year comes from his experience with his walk-up music last season. Gordon used “Good Vibrations” by Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch during the beginning of the year and said he injured his groin almost immediately after switching to “I Mean It” by G-Eazy.

Eliminating a genre from his potential music pool may have made things a little easier on Gordon. For a versatile player like Gordon, it’s only fitting that he said he’s a fan of just about every kind of music.

“I do it all, I don’t hate on anything,” Gordon said. “Country, rap, heavy metal, rock and roll, I like it all the same. Whatever you’re going to play, I’m going to find a way to enjoy it.”

Other Royals players don’t quite have Gordon’s eclectic taste — but that doesn’t necessarily make the process of picking a walk-up song any easier. For instance, pitcher Dillon Gee said he primarily listens to country music, but that just means he’s got plenty of homework ahead of him to find a song to walk out to.

“That’s the one bad thing about only listening to country music, is that it’s not really great for walk-up songs,” Gee said. “I’ll have to do my research on that.”

Gee might have a few partners in his research work. Cain said he’ll be taking to the Internet to search for potential ideas, while Cody Decker will be leaving his fate up to his social media following.

“I don’t know what I’m going to pick this year,” Decker said. “I don’t know if I’m going to go clever, funny, tough — we’ll see. I’m going to leave it to the Twitter audience to decide.”

In years past, Decker said he’s used a wide variety of walk-up music. Over time, he said he’s learned that he can get locked in at the plate with just about anything playing in the stadium.

“ ‘Knight Rider’ theme — boom, nailed another one,” Decker said. “CM Punk’s walkout song, ‘Cult of Personality’ by Living Colour; good one. ‘Flash Gordon’ theme song by Queen. These are all songs I’ve walked out to. ‘Flintstone’s’ theme — I lost a bet. A lot of good options out there.”

Decker said he’ll put out a list of options for fans to vote on, because the fans are who the walk-up song is for.

“If it gets the crowd going, it gets me going. I love hearing the crowd make noise,” Decker said. “If I walk out to ‘TNT’ by AC/DC and I hear the whole crowd going ‘oi,oi,’ that’s awesome. If I walk out to Sami Zayn’s song (“Worlds Apart” by CFO$) from the WWE and the whole crowd is singing ‘ole, ole, ole, ole,’ that’s awesome. It’s about them, not me.”

Like Gordon, Decker wouldn’t reveal exactly what options he was going to include on his Twitter poll, although he provided Still, Decker one hint to get to the speculation going.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if you see ‘The A-Team’ theme on there,” he said.

This story was originally published March 28, 2016 at 3:52 PM with the headline "From Fetty Wap to AC/DC, Royals take different approaches to walk-up music."