Me? I'd Probably Go With Zeppelin

What will be your at-bat music? When you make it to the major leagues, and you’re introduced as the next batter, what song will blare over the P.A. system?

I’ve been thinking about this during the playoffs; goodness knows, there’s plenty of time to think. I’m not sure when baseball decided it needs to be more like professional wrestling, but the typical at-bat these days is accompanied by more fanfare than halftime of a college football game.

With your typical major-league at-bat, the player is introduced, 10 or 15 seconds of his theme song is played, he adjusts his batting gloves — both of them, adjusts his helmet, adjusts his cup, puts one foot in the box, stretches, puts the other foot in the box, stares down the pitcher . . . and pops up on the first pitch. But that popup doesn’t mean his music wasn’t cool!

So . . . what would be your intro music? For suggestions, MTV last year put together the 2010 Baseball At-Bat Music All Stars. They even had the good sense to include the all-time, hands-down, greatest intro music in the history of baseball: Metallica’s “Enter Sandman” for Mariano Rivera. I mean, is there anything — any piece of writing, any documentary film, any column by the most loquacious of columnizers — that sums up Rivera better than “Enter Sandman”? 1. It’s a cool song; 2. He’s about to put the game to sleep! Get it?

When Rivera is inducted to the Hall of Fame, they should just play “Enter Sandman” and be done with it.

Me? If I’m a hitter, I would chose from one of three options:

— The opening drum flurry and guitar riff from Led Zeppelin’s “Rock and Roll.”

— The opening riff and banshee screams from Zeppelin’s “Immigrant Song.”

— The power chords and introduction of the drums from The Who’s “Baba O’Riley,” after the synthesizer portion.

Probably should have some hip-hop options in there. The opening beats of Public Enemy’s “Fight the Power” would sound great over a P.A. system. Or I could go with N.W.A.’s “Straight Outta Compton,” except that, you know, I’m not from Compton, and you get only five words into the song before it becomes unfit for public consumption. But aside from that it would be a cool choice.

The best intro music I’ve ever heard was when UFC 102 came to Portland. One of the fighters entered to the ethereal opening bars of “Gimme Shelter” by the Rolling Stones. It worked really, really well, but only because they could play 45 seconds or a minute of it; you couldn’t do that for an at-bat.

So, let me know what your intro music would be. But, as always, please, no Ke$ha.