The secret behind Milone's warm up music

OAKLAND -- One of the perks of being a professional baseball player is choosing what music to warm up or walk to the plate to. The musical representation chosen can often be a good indicator of a player's personality.Brandon Inge stepping to the plate to Movin' Like Bernie accurately portrays him as a joker, Josh Reddick's various WWE entrance themes represents him as a pro wrestling fan. But no player's musical selection is more telling than starting pitcher Tommy Milone's warm up song. His song proves he is a well rounded, quality individual, and a good friend.Upon glancing at the list of A's player's musical selections, the title of Milone's warm up song is missing. You can't use Shazam to find it online, you haven't heard it on the radio, you can only hear it at the Oakland Coliseum when he takes the mound. Why? Because he and good friend and former USC teammate J.D. Pomilia made it themselves.In 2008 Pomilia, a Bay Area Native, was teammates with Milone, Ryan Cook, and Grant Green at USC. While Pomilia is an infielder between the lines, he is a musician on the side. Prior to this season he was visiting with Milone and his girlfriend Tina, when Tommy played him the song he was planning to warm up to for his first Oakland start. Pomilia wasn't impressed."It was a song from five or six years ago, an Akon song or something," Pomilia said. "I was like, 'Ah, Tommy that's terrible, use one of these.' And I played him a bunch of beats I made and he chose one."With a little input and fine tuning from Milone, Pomilia was able to modify the song to his friend's liking."I liked it but I wanted to change it around a little bit," Milone said. "So he changed it around until he came up with something that I would want to walk out to.""For a rookie pitcher with a lot of pressure on him and your opening start, that's a real nice thing for him to do," Pomilia said.Milone has warmed up to that song in all 10 of his home starts. You can hear the song here:"I think it was the beginning that caught my attention," Milone said. "The bells were kinda like the song Hell's Bells. I was just listening for something that caught my ear."Milone and Pomilia worked on it up until the day before the pitcher's A's debut. Upon taking the mound at the Coliseum on April 9, Milone threw eight shutout innings, allowing just three hits and got his first career win with the A's.A special day for both Milone and Pomilia for different reasons."It was a huge honor," Pomilia said. "Hearing it in front of all those people when I went to the game it was pretty awesome. Anytime I thank him for doing it, he is like, 'What do you mean? Thank you for doing it.' He is just so humble about everything."
After 10 starts with the current warm up song, Milone decided it is time to change it up. So Pomilia went back to work on a new track. The initial concept was laid out in a couple of hours. After adding some digital plug-ins to enhance the sound of the guitar riff in the song, the collaborative effort began. Pomilia says he emailed the song to Milone after every major edit, Milone would then provide feedback.Pomilia makes these beats digitally, but he has played the saxophone since he was in sixth grade, and his mother's side of the family has vast musical experience. As a result, he doesn't like using digital instrumentals that sound too synthetic in his beats. One of Milone's main critiques of the new song was that it had a synthesizer throughout. On Milone's advice, Pomilia took down the synthesizer and had it fade in and out. That aspect of the song is one of it's most grabbing features.Here is the new track that Milone is debuting before Friday's start. Pop in some earbuds and listen to the song and you'll hear the synthesizer effect go back and forth in your ears:"I think the combination of similarities in musical taste and Tommy's honesty,results in a fun and rewarding collaboration," Pomilia said.Milone's 2.13 home ERA is sixth best in the American League. Could it be the spacious confines of the Coliseum? The extra foul territory? The warm up music perhaps?
RELATED: Tommy Milone's statssplitsgame logs
"Hopefully we keep doing this, he keeps pitching well at home and I keep telling him it's because of my music," Pomilia said with a laugh.While Milone has found his path as an emerging star in Oakland's starting rotation, Pomilia is working on forging his own future."I make the music on the side, baseball is my other huge love, but when I am angry, happy, or sad, it is such an out for me," Pomilia said. "Between school and sports it has been hard to put the time into it that I wish I could.""He's made some songs on his own, he sings them but I think he would rather write it," Milone said. "He enjoys to do that. It's not something that he does as a job, he just enjoys it. If he got the opportunity I think he would, it just hasn't caught up."For now, Pomilia is perfectly proud of his collaborations with his good friend. No doubt, both of them have bright futures."Obviously none of this would happen without him," Pomilia said of Milone. "There's some people that just deserve to be where they are in life and he is such a good friend. No matter what kind of success he finds, he is always going to be that friend."