Fans of the Washington Nationals have a new reason to watch: they can enjoy a “Baby Shark” attack every time Gerardo Parra comes to bat, when the infectious children’s song starts playing.

LULU GARCIA-NAVARRO, HOST:

The music a baseball player picks to walk up to home plate is a careful choice. It anticipates the batter’s next hit, the one that could mean victory or the one that could turn a losing game around.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “THIS IS HOW WE DO IT”)

MONTELL JORDAN: (Singing) This is how we do it.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “GASOLINA”)

DADDY YANKEE: (Singing in Spanish).

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “FEELING GOOD”)

MICHAEL BUBLE: (Singing) It’s an new day. It’s a new life. It’s a new life for me. And I’m feeling good.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: Walk-up music is a staple of baseball culture. Recently, Gerardo Parra of the Washington Nationals mixed up that tradition with…

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “BABY SHARK”)

PINKFONG: (Singing) Baby shark, doo doo doo doo doo doo. Baby shark, doo doo doo doo doo doo. Baby shark, doo doo doo doo doo doo. Baby shark.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: …The insidious, yet joyful “Baby Shark.”

BLAKE FINNEY: To have “Baby Shark” come up at Nats Park has been something completely different and it’s absolutely taken it by storm.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: That’s Blake Finney. He writes about the Nationals for SB Nation’s website, Federal Baseball. Now, to be fair, this isn’t the first time a major league player has used “Baby Shark” as a walk-up song. Elvis Andrus of the Texas Rangers uses it, too, but it’s really taken off at Nationals Park thanks to Gerardo Parra. He chose the song because his 2-year-old daughter loves it. Now, it’s become his thing. Blake Finney says the center fielder has been quite the morale booster since he was traded to the Nats in May.

FINNEY: When he joined the team, they were down in the dumps. They were not meeting expectations. There were calls for the manager to be fired and the dugout didn’t seem to have that much life.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: Oh, it has a life now.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

UNIDENTIFIED ANNOUNCER: Gerardo Parra.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “BABY SHARK”)

PINKFONG: (Singing) Baby shark, doo doo doo doo doo doo.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: The dugout, the entire stadium, even the opposing team, every time its Parra’s turn at the bat, few people can resist a “Baby Shark” attack.

CHRIS DENNING: Everybody in the audience, they just start clapping, and it’s almost like they’re anticipating it. Everybody’s got their hands in like – in their shark chomping motion ready to go. And then as soon as that music starts going, they start clapping their hands together and singing along.

(SOUNDBITE OF CROWD CLAPPING)

GARCIA-NAVARRO: Chris Denning has seen this action up close at Nats Park. He could only clap with one hand because he was recording on his phone with the other. He’s familiar with the song. He’s the father of seven, and he’s a longtime Nats fan.

DENNING: For me, I look at this and I’m kind of hopeful that this is a moment in which the fans really kind of grow together. You know, it’s silly to think that it’s just, you know, the song is the thing that’s doing it for us.

ANNIE DINEEN: The first time I saw people doing the shark thing, I was a little bit skeptical to be completely honest.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: That’s Annie Dineen. She’s 28 years old, no kids, and she thought she was immune to the power of “Baby Shark.”

DINEEN: But I was sitting in a section where there were, like – there must have been a summer camp. There were, like, 10 or 15, like, 4-year-olds and their faces – they were so excited. And I was like, well, OK, this is kind of fun. And then I was hooked, and now I’m an avid shark supporter.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: And Dineen, along with many other shark supporters, now considers this song a true sports anthem.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “BABY SHARK”)

PINKFONG: (Singing) Baby shark, doo doo doo doo doo doo. Baby shark, doo doo doo doo doo doo. Baby shark, doo doo doo doo doo doo.

Copyright © 2019 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by Verb8tm, Inc., an NPR contractor, and produced using a proprietary transcription process developed with NPR. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.

Simone Biles became the first person in history to land a double twisting, double somersault in competition at the U.S. Gymnastics Championship.

LULU GARCIA-NAVARRO, HOST:

We’re in awe of Simone Biles. She’s already broken a bundle of records, and she’s made history again. At the U.S. gymnastics championship on Friday, she became the first gymnast to land a double-double in competition. In her dismount from the balance beam, she soared in a double twisting, double somersault dismount.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

UNIDENTIFIED ANNOUNCER: Here it comes – two flips, two twists, never been done in competition.

(CHEERING)

UNIDENTIFIED ANNOUNCER: That makes everything just a little bit more palatable.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: It does make everything more palatable, doesn’t it? If Biles can complete the double-double in international competition, they’re going to name it after her. It would be the third move with her name on it.

Copyright © 2019 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by Verb8tm, Inc., an NPR contractor, and produced using a proprietary transcription process developed with NPR. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.

Former NFL player Chris Borland grew up Catholic in Dayton. He talks with host Sacha Pfeiffer about his call for the church to take a stronger stand for gun control and against white supremacy.

SACHA PFEIFFER, HOST:

Chris Borland is another athlete who’s taking a stand, and he’s asking other athletes to join him. He’s a former NFL player who grew up in Kettering, Ohio, a suburb of Dayton. After the mass shootings there and in El Paso and in Gilroy, Calif., he wrote an open letter to the archbishop of Cincinnati urging the Catholic Church to, quote, “lead as Christ would.” I asked Borland why he wanted to single out the Catholic Church…

CHRIS BORLAND: It’s what I know, and I grew up within the church. And I see a concerning lack of assertiveness in addressing what’s going on in our country. And to have, you know, what happened in Dayton be met with what I’d consider just the minimal reaction thoughts and prayers to me isn’t enough.

PFEIFFER: What exactly do you want the church to do?

BORLAND: To firstly name and condemn white supremacy – two of the three terrorist attacks were carried out in the name of white supremacy. Secondly, to frame gun control for what it is, a pro-life stance. And thirdly, to hold accountable politicians who are parishioners who use the lord’s name and talk about God in Christ to get elected and then don’t act once in office and embody those values.

PFEIFFER: Last week, the archbishop of San Antonio, Texas, on Twitter was critical of President Trump. He said to him, stop your hatred. And he got heavily criticized for that – the archbishop did – kind of had to backtrack a little. If the archbishop and a part of the country that’s been right at the center of both the crisis on the border and now this attack can’t come out strongly and explicitly call out people that he thinks are promoting racism and violence, do you think it’s realistic to expect other Catholic leaders to do the same?

BORLAND: I don’t know that it’s realistic. This may be entirely naive. I’ve emailed and called and left messages to the Archdiocese of Cincinnati, you know, a half dozen or more over the past few days, and have gotten minimal response. So we do have a lot of power in the voice and the numbers of athletes that have competed in the greater Catholic League and we’re going to start there. Maybe it falls on deaf ears, but I think it’s better than doing nothing.

PFEIFFER: You mentioned that you’re trying to build a coalition in a sense of other athletes with prominent public platforms to speak out and join you. Have you been able to get other professional athletes to join you in calling out the Catholic Church?

BORLAND: It’s starting. We’ve had a few, you know, retweet and like the tweets that I put out a couple days ago. You know, there’s a handful of text conversations between men and women that have played at a high-level and email chains. And we’re figuring out the best way to do that. But the sad nature of gun violence in America and of hatred is that if you wait very long, there’s likely be another atrocity. So although it’s imperfect right now, we want to act and figure this out as we go. But, you know, when it happens in your backyard, you have to do something.

PFEIFFER: That’s Chris Borland, a former NFL linebacker who grew up in Dayton. We reached out to the Cincinnati Archdiocese for comment on Borland’s letter, and we were told that the archbishop has read it but hasn’t yet sent Borland a formal response.

Copyright © 2019 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by Verb8tm, Inc., an NPR contractor, and produced using a proprietary transcription process developed with NPR. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.

NPR’s Sacha Pfeiffer talks about the growing role of personal politics in sports and more with Howard Bryant of ESPN.

SACHA PFEIFFER, HOST:

And now it’s time for sports.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

PFEIFFER: The New York Yankees remain one of the hottest teams in Major League Baseball, and politics continues to creep its way into the sports world. ESPN’s Howard Bryant joins us now to talk about all of that. Good morning, Howard.

HOWARD BRYANT: Good morning. How are you?

PFEIFFER: I’m good. So the Yankees – also very good for them – although it’s been 10 years since they’ve won a World Series, you’re saying that fans have good reason to be excited that they could do it this season.

BRYANT: Well, I think they do. And I think one of the reasons is their depth. It’s unbelievable how many players the Yankees have had injured this year, whether it’s Aaron Judge, whether it’s Giancarlo Stanton – virtually everybody in their lineup – Gary Sanchez. They’ve all been hurt. They’ve used the injured list a ridiculous number of times this year in terms of number of players that they’ve had hurt. And yet, they still have the best record and – in the American League. And they are still the team that has somehow run away with the American League East.

They’ve been knocking on the door the last couple years. They went to the American League Championship Series in 2017. They lost to the Red Sox in the playoffs last year. And this year, they look like they’re really close. And it’s kind of interesting, too, because, when you think about the Yankees, you think about them winning all the time and not being the underdog. But when you put Red Sox-Yankees next to each other, ever since 2004, the Red Sox have three championships, and the Yankees have one.

PFEIFFER: Right. And what do you think is making the Yankees so good this year?

BRYANT: It’s their depth. They’ve got so many players that you’ve never heard of, whether it’s Gio Urshela or the young Gleyber Torres. They’ve had so many injuries. You look at a – even a kid like Andujar last year who was playing great for them – he got hurt. And just every new player that comes into the lineup steps in, does something great. That kid Ford is hitting home runs now. Tauchman’s got 12 home runs. It’s just amazing. And you’re like, who are these guys? And yet, every player they put into the lineup produces. And that’s that magic that you have with championship teams where everybody contributes. And before you know it, they’re the ones at the end of the finish line.

PFEIFFER: Howard, there’s been a lot of noteworthy sports news happening off the playing field lately, athletes and activism. I know that Simone Biles, the Olympic gymnast, has been very outspoken, and that’s really caught your attention.

BRYANT: Well, absolutely, it has, considering that now you’re looking at these federations with – whether it’s the U.S. gymnastics with the Larry Nassar scandal and the sexual assault of those young gymnasts and how many over how many years – 300. And you look at these federations, and their job is to protect these athletes. Their job is not simply to profit off of them.

And when you look at what’s happening to them or you’re talking about the equal pay situations, whether it’s the U.S. women’s national hockey team or the U.S. women’s soccer team, or whether it’s equal pay in tennis, the athletes are recognizing that they have more power than they have been exercising over the past several years. And you’re starting to see now the athletes recognizing and saying and using their power, whether they get criticized for it or not – that they’ve got a stake in this, and they’re going to make sure everybody hears them.

PFEIFFER: Well, speaking of criticism, do you have a sense of the ratio of fans who like outspoken athletes versus fans who take a shut-up-and-just-play-the-game stance?

BRYANT: Well, I think that sports has never been anything but political. It’s always had a political element to it. And so people who don’t like this are usually saying, I don’t like what you’re saying. And they don’t have much of a great sense of history. I also understand the need for sports to be the place where you can get away from your problems. But there’s a separation here. Part of it is your entertainment, but part of it is their job.

PFEIFFER: That’s ESPN’s Howard Bryant. Howard, thank you.

BRYANT: Thank you.

Copyright © 2019 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by Verb8tm, Inc., an NPR contractor, and produced using a proprietary transcription process developed with NPR. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.