Flashback Friday: 10/16 Organist at Goodland Field
The topic is in-game entertainment at Goodland Field and how they kept the crowd entertained.
===========
Musical cheers / Organists instrumental to sporting events.
There was a trick question a few years back that stumped more that a few self-proclaimed Milwaukee trivia experts, in which the victim was asked to name the only man to play for the Milwaukee Brewers, Milwaukee Bucks, and Milwaukee Admirals.
The answer, of course, was not some super-athlete, but organist Frank Charles, who has serenaded fans of the three teams between innings, quarters, periods, and at other opportune moments for many years.
Joe Scheibinger, an Oshkosh organist, has yet to play for a hockey team, although he says that, for all he knows about baseball, the Appleton Foxes, could have been one.
But like Milwaukee's Charles, he has been instrumental to both local sports franchises as organist for both the Foxes and the Wisconsin Flyers basketball team.
Scheibinger, who platoons at his position on a game-to-game basis with Appleton organist Tim Leikip at the Foxes games, is still learning the subtleties of the national pastime. But what he lacks in baseball acumen, he compensates for with enthusiasm.
"I'm learning," he said, watching the Foxes as they battered the Kenosha Twins recently. "This is fascinating."
Tucked in a darkened corner of the pressbox ("Light attracts lakeflies") Scheibinger studies each game as closely as any manager, interpreting each turn of events musically.
While he may not pick up the bunt sign from the third base coach or recognize when the hit-and-run is on, Sheibinger still knows how to get a crowd involved in a game.
But playing for a baseball crowd, he said, is a little different from playing for a basketball crowd.
"Basketball is really wild," he said. "You're playing during the whole game. You can really get a crowd going during a basketball game. You can just about make them scream."
Baseball fans, however, are a little more reserved. The slower, more contemplative game often attracts fans who prefer their game lightly seasoned with a melody or two rather than covered with a heavy sauce of constant musical bombardment.
Scheibinger understands this, and he attempts to add tuneful interludes only at appropriate times.
When one of the Foxes is rounding third and heading for home plate, for example, Scheibinger chooses a rousing version of "California Here I Come" or "Show Me the Way to Go Home." When the visiting team wears light-blue uniforms, he opts for "Bye Bye Blue" or "Blue Velvet". A high pop fly brings "Catch a Falling Star," and so on.
If the game does get a little slow, "Mexican Hat Dance," a song for which sports fans have long been trained to almost unconsciously clap their hands on cue, is bound to awaken them.
But he can't play his favorite song for fear of insulting the umpires.
"It's against league rules to play, "Three Blind Mice," he explained.
Scheibinger, a man who once received a technical foul during a Flyers game for playing "Mickey Mouse" during foul shooting by the visiting team is loath to insult the officials. But, he doesn't mind tweaking their noses a little.
"'Hit the Road Jack' is pretty good for the umpires because The crowd knows what I'm doing," he said.
He has a few other self-imposed rules.
When the visiting team is up, I never play," he said. "I always emphasize the home team. I won't play to emphasize a mistake by the other team. That would be bad sportsmanship."
The organ, a Technics E-55 that was a donation from Henri's Music, is what attracted Scheibinger to the job in addition to his love for playing sporting events.
"If this thing doesn't make you sound like a professional, nothing will," he said, laughing as he electronically changed keys of "Mame" and added a rhythm section to the rendition and smoothly switched from saxophone to clarinet to flute for each verse.
This experimentation with the complex electronic instrument is not always compatable [sic] with the tone of the song, as evidenced by drum licks he added to - and quickly subtracted from - "You Are the Sunshine of My Life" between innings.
"Stevie Wonder would kill me for that," he said with a laugh.
Bill Smith, general manager for the Foxes, believes the organ adds something to the games, and he hopes it aids his team just a bit.
"Hopefully it adds a home team advantage," he said, adding that when the team used cassette tape recordings in earlier years, there was no way to be spontaneous in a musical response to action on the field.
Leikip, a sales manager at Henri's who brought the organ to Goodland Field, couldn't imagine baseball without an organ when he moved to Appleton from Madison recently. A Madison Muskies fan, he had never seen a baseball game that did not have the benefit of an organ player.
"When I heard they didn't have an organ, I just made up my mind that we were going to do something for them," Leikip said.
===========
REACTIONS:
1.) Frank Charles ROCKED the MECCA! Plus, his version of "Rockin' Robin" as Robin Yount strode to the plate at Milwaukee County Stadium was....oh, what's the word...AWESOME!
2.) I don't think that Stevie Wonder could kill anyone. He might have sued, though.
3.) Hum the "Mexican Hat Dance" out loud right now. Try not to clap where you are supposed to clap. Now, try it with any friends, family, or co-workers....See, it's impossible.