Friday, April 29, 2005

Wes Cosgriff's Return

Coach Joe Walsh ordinarily eschews all ceremony. His pulling the plug on the walk-up music at O'Donnell halfway through the season has become an annual event, and he's not very big into Senior Day festivities. (The last home games of the season come during the pivotal Dartmouth series every year, and I'm told Walsh once answered the question "What are you doing for Senior Day?" with "Senior Day? We'll come here and win two games. Happy Senior Day!")

Despite all this, we're set for a very nice moment at the start of Sunday's games:
Right after Thanksgiving, sophomore Wes Cosgriff was diagnosed with testicular cancer, which proceeded to spread throughout his body.

On April 6, he underwent an operation and has since been declared cancer-free.

Cosgriff will be visiting Harvard this weekend for the first time since the operation, and the Crimson, Walsh says, will be playing for him.

Harvard plans to have Cosgriff throw out the first pitch to honor him and his successful recovery.

“Wes doesn’t know it, but he’s been with us every day,” Walsh said. “We’ve had his shirt with us at every game.”

“This is a bigger story than just the Ivy League Championship. When he steps on the field to throw out the first pitch, we’ll feel like we couldn’t have had a better season, regardless of how the games go.”

2 comments:

Faiz said...

Good article by Alex McPhillips on the "walk-up music." I think "Crazy Train" is an Ozzy Osbourne delight, not Black Sabbath.

More generally about the "walk-up music," the players have only to blame themselves on this one. When we tried to do that (again) my senior year, I offered to edit the selections that people chose, but of course no one wanted to be given a veto so everyone's selections went straight onto a CD (compliments of Madhu). Anyways, someone chose a rap song with cuss words and that was the end of it.

For Crimson players of the future, I'll give you the advice I gave a few years ago that no one listened to. First, choose music that the coaches will like. There's plenty of music out there. I'm sure you rap-lovers would love to hear 50 Cent, but you're going to have to suck it up and go with Boston or Garth Brooks or something else you can tolerate. Classic rock, solid country music, and some pop music are safe bets.

Second, the prelude to the music is the most important part. You only listen to the darn thing for a few seconds so make those first few seconds are excellent. That's why I chose Van Halen's Jump. Song's ok, but listen to the prelude -- it's awesome. When choosing a song for the "walk-up," listen only to the first 10 seconds of it when deciding. Think Chipper Jones -- that's why everyone knows his song. No cuss words and no crazy music (like Cotton-Eyed Joe, Irish ballads, ska or rage -- keep those for the locker room).

If you follow these rules, I guarantee you'll be the first successful Crimson team to have walk-up music for an entire season and Coach Walsh will praise you.

Faiz said...

Oh, and one more addendum, you should also compile a CD to be played in down moments (like between games and/or during BP). That CD should be separate from the walk-up music b/c, in the event that your music has cuss words sometime later in the song and gets played in between games, that will spell the death of the walk-up. Instead, have a CD with classic baseball songs (like "Centerfield" or "Glory Days") to play in all other situations but walk-ups. A third CD with the Star-Spangled Banner, Take Me Out to the Ballgame, and God Bless America (performed in your favorite versions) might also be a good idea -- it would certainly help out the PR people.