2019 Rays Walk-up Music Bracket, Super-Delayed Final

If you’re anything like me (that’s to say: privileged enough to be in a position where this lockdown has not impacted you directly, and young/single enough to not have children), the last few weeks have been filled with long-term projects that you just never had time to squeeze in before this unprecedented time.

One of those many projects I have been working on is cataloging all my various writing from across the world wide web. And one thing I stumbled upon in the midst of that project was the fact that I had somehow lost track of the final for last year’s walk-up music bracket.

So, while many most all of you may not actually care how this turns out, I’m OCD enough to not be able to let this sleeping dog lie. So let’s put a capper on last year’s bracket while we still don’t have any baseball to trigger this year’s bracket.

The Final

Mike Zunino: “I Won’t Back Down” by Tom Pettty

Kevin Kiermaier: “Hustlin’” by Rick Ross

The 2019 Rays Walk-up Bracket Final represents the coming together of several themes that have been consistent over the years I have done this:

• Y’all stan for the Face of the Franchise player (Longo won the inaugural edition)
• Y’all love classic rock (in particular, Led Zeppelin)
• Y’all can appreciate some good wordplay in the player’s walk-up choice

This final pits the Rays current Face of the Franchise against a classic rock song with a title seemingly hand-picked for a walk-up song. As for staying on brand: A+ job, folks.

Personally, I’m not a huge Rick Ross guy, and I was actually pulling for Travis d’Arnaud’s “The Way I Live” by Baby Boy Da Prince to make it out of the semi-finals, but given this match-up, I gotta go with Zunes and the late, great Tom Petty. That being said, my prediction is the reverse, with KK and RR my pick to take home the delayed plaudits.

Who y’all got in the super-delayed final? As always, polls still don’t work on mobile :( so hop on your desktop to vote.