By Kelly Kazek
kelly@athensnews-courier.com
AUBURN, Ala.
August 18, 2007 08:41 pm
—
On Aug. 31, Andrew Hall planned to be in a seat at Turner Field, watching the Atlanta Braves during his bachelor outing the weekend before his wedding. Now, the graduate student at Auburn University will spend that evening performing live in a pregame show and meeting star player Mark Teixeira and other Braves players.
Hall will sing a song he wrote with pal and future brother-in-law Tyler Crawford, a junior at Auburn, called “Mark Teixeira Tribute.” A videotape of the friends performing the song is one of the most-watched videos on You Tube, leading Braves right fielder Jeff Francouer, officials with the Braves organization and Fox’s Sports South to contact Hall, a 2002 graduate of Athens Bible School, and Crawford about the song.
“The first thing that happened that was like, ‘Whoa, this is crazy,’ was when we reached 700 views or so and the Braves and Sports South messaged me,” Hall said.
Francoeur called with offers of a meet-and-greet with the players, but the Braves organization offered something more — a chance for stardom.
Or at least the chance to hear thousands of fans cheering their performance in the Turner Field Plaza.
A spokeswoman for the Braves said the video had “gone through the office like wildfire” and everyone loved it.
Braves general manager John Schuerholz said Friday his son e-mailed the You Tube link to him — Schuerholz is mentioned in the song — and he had heard the Braves’ marketing department may have some plans for the song but he did not know specifics.
A call to Fox Sports was not returned Friday but Hall and Crawford said a network representative showed interest in using the song on air.
“In his message, he said something about 11 million viewers in the southeast would love to see it,” Hall said.
Network officials wanted them to re-record in the same setting — sitting on a sofa in a college apartment — so the lyrics could be more clearly heard, Crawford said.
By Friday night, more than 9,000 people had gone to the Web site to watch the video in the six days since it was posted.
“It’s insane,” said Crawford, a nursing student and Chelsea resident, by cell phone Friday from Auburn. “When we posted it online, it was just for our friends, then we started getting more hits. It’s just like we can’t even believe it.”
15 minutes
The 30 to 45 minutes it took Hall, 23, and Crawford, 20, to write and record “Mark Teixeira Tribute” should bring them more than just 15 minutes of fame.
“We would joke about playing at the seventh inning stretch at Turner Field,” Crawford said.
Hall, who played baseball at ABS and during his first year at Auburn, said the idea for the song began when he, Crawford and friend Jason Williams were watching TV after first baseman Teixeira, pronounced Tishera, was traded to the Braves earlier this month.
“I invited a couple of buddies over to watch the first game after we found out Mark Teixeira traded and we started goofing around,” he said. “We started coming up with these crazy rhymes. We wrote them all down just for fun. Later that night, we decided to write a song about it.”
Less than an hour later, Hall and Crawford were officially a song-writing team.
“Three or four days went by after we had written it and we played it for our roommates just for fun,” Hall said. The response encouraged them to post the song on an online networking site.
“We put it on Face Book first and several people commented,” he said. “When we put it on You Tube, obviously we weren’t expecting all this to happen.”
In the first few days, Hall and Crawford enjoyed reading comments posted on You Tube by viewers:
“That is the best thing EVER!!!!! I want it on my iPod!!!!”
“I hope to see this on TV during a game before too long.”
“Oh, this is going on TV within a week. Good job, guys.”
Crawford said he doesn’t remember who wrote which rhymes, in particular the amusing last stanza.
“We got on a roll, one of us would say a word and get a rhyme, then the other would,” he said.
Braves officials said they wanted to have Hall and Crawford record the song in a studio so they can play it on the stadium’s high-definition video board during rain delays or other lulls in games, Crawford said.
More important things
Hall was advised by a Nashville recording company that the lyrics to the song were automatically copyrighted in the videotape but Hall said he has already filled out paperwork to ensure the lyrics are properly protected, he said.
In the meantime, Hall and Crawford will need to rehearse for the big night — the one on Aug. 31 and the one the following weekend.
“Right now the wedding is the most important thing,” said Crawford of the pending nuptials of his sister and Hall.
Emily, a senior at Auburn in human development who plans to continue her education with nursing studies, said 300 invitations have been sent and she doesn’t expect any big offers to change the couple’s plans to wed on Sept. 8.
She will likely, however, postpone a bridal shower that was scheduled for Aug. 31.
“I had a bridal shower planned so the guys could have their night,” she said. Friends, though, said they have no trouble with postponing it so she can attend the performance at Turner Field that night.
“I’m really excited for them,” Emily said of her fiancé and younger brother. “I think they’re both really great guys. Now I guess everyone else can see what we around here see all the time.”
Her brother was humble.
“It was a lot of fun to do it,” he said. “We were tickled to death anybody really watched it.”
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