Post by GUEST on Mar 26, 2012 14:26:09 GMT -5
Alicia Hollowell, now a UA operations director, was adamant about keeping the Linda Ronstadt first-inning tradition.
Read more: azstarnet.com/sports/softball/college/wildcats/ua-softball-best-tradition-on-ua-campus-is-found-at/article_cf8c3c6c-14a2-58d3-8db8-533ff16b71a8.html#ixzz1qFhevMUb
UA Softball: Best tradition on UA campus is found at Hillenbrand Stadium
Patrick Finley Arizona Daily Star | Posted: Thursday, March 1, 2012 12:00 am
The great Lyle Lovett once introduced a tune as "a cheatin' song about Mexican food."
To which I counter, humbly, with a softball column about Linda Ronstadt.
Allow me to gush: There is no tradition on the Arizona Wildcats campus more fantastically obscure, lovely and regionally perfect than the one in its 20th season at Hillenbrand Stadium.
(Give the silver to the pep band waving to the men's basketball coach - and, more importantly, him waving back - before tipoff.)
For 601 home games since Hillenbrand opened in 1993, players and fans have heard the same two first-inning Ronstadt songs. They almost faded away last month.
"A lot of athletes have the 'Eye of the Tiger,'" said Erika Barnes, the UA associate athletics director and softball sports supervisor who played from 1998-2001. "We have Linda Ronstadt."
When the Wildcats take the field, the public address system blares "Palomita de los Ojos Negros," a track from the Tucson-born Ronstadt's 1991 album, "Mas Canciones."
The announcer follows with "Juegen pelota" - play ball.
In the bottom half, "La Mariquita," another traditional song from the same album, serenades the opposing team's pitcher as she throws warmup tosses.
There's protocol. Each song starts when the first player crosses the baseline, and ends when the warmed-up pitcher steps on the rubber to start the frame. On rare occasions, in tournaments when the UA is a visiting team, the songs are swapped so the Wildcats feel at home.
In a time where every utterance at UA games comes with a sponsor, the first inning sails along, unencumbered, while the music plays.
"It's kinda a trademark," Arizona coach Mike Candrea said.
The UA held a marketing meeting last month about the team's game-day operations, adding a "This is Arizona softball" pregame video, player walk-up music and more.
Early in the meeting, Barnes and operations director Alicia Hollowell had one request.
"I wanted to make sure there was one thing that wasn't going to change," Hollowell said.
Hollowell knows only three words to the song played while she warmed up as a star pitcher from 2003 to 2006. Both songs are entirely in Spanish. Most players have no idea what they mean.
Both are ranchera songs, with expressive emotion hiding behind the veneer of "a little white dove with black eyes" and a girl nicknamed "Ladybug."
"It's kinda weird, but I like it," third baseman Brigette Del Ponte said. "Because you know the other team is in the dugout like, 'What the heck is going on right now?'"
Former players have a Pavlovian response, even now.
"You want to run out and take names," Barnes said.
It was never meant to be tradition.
UA media relations director Tom Duddleston was given "Mas Canciones" by his mom, Betty, after it came out in late 1991.
The album featured Ronstadt's brothers Peter and Mike on vocals. At the time, Peter was Tucson's police chief.
Duddleston had seen Linda Ronstadt, a Tucson native, play with the Stone Poneys, and was a fan.
"We were thinking of things to do to make things festive," Duddleston said. "What's more festive than that?"
He stumbled upon "Palomita" first, when the team took the field, and soon added "Mariquita."
At first, they were played from a tape recorder, with a microphone propped on a plastic cup with the bottom torn out.
Other songs got steady rotation over the years - by The Who and Beastie Boys and Us3 - but none became sacred like Ronstadt's.
Duddleston has dreamed of her singing them live, just once, before the first pitch.
Now that would be a home run.
"It's one of those things we rolled into," he said. "Now it's called 'tradition.'"
Up next
• Who: College of Charleston at Arizona, three-game series, at Hillenbrand Stadium
• Friday: 6 p.m.
• Saturday: 4:30 p.m. (followed by Arizona Alumni vs. Wounded Warriors exhibition game at 6:30 p.m.)
• Sunday: 1 p.m.