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How One Colorado Rockies Fan Took To Twitter To Get Live Organ Music Back At Coors Field

Flickr/Creative Commons
In a tweet that has gone viral, Rockies fan Collin Ingram challenged the organization to bring back live organ music to the stadium.

It started as an off-the-cuff Tweet to the Colorado Rockies: “How many retweets for you to buy an organ and let me be the Coors Field organist next season?”

Denver music producer -- and Rockies fan -- Collin Ingram didn’t really expect an answer from the Major League Baseball club, but he got one.

“5,280,000.”

Now with more than 129,000 retweets in less than a week, Ingram may be on his way to the ballpark -- whether he likes it or not.

“I had no expectations of that,” Ingram said. “In fact, I kind of thought to myself, ‘That was a really stupid thing to post,’ and sort of forgot about it. And then looked at my phone and it already had, like, 1,000 (retweets).”

He said it’s especially funny since he doesn’t actually play the organ.

“I’ve played some really simple organ parts on a couple records that I’ve worked on, but I’m definitely not qualified to be a Major League organist,” Ingram said.

But he thinks maybe it speaks to a larger issue: People really do want live music at the ballpark.

Only half of the Major League ballparks still feature live organ music at games. Coors Field had an organ up until 1999. The instrument still sits in the park’s historical archives.

Ingram said he’s a fan of those classic ballpark elements and he thinks the success of his tweet might be a sign he’s not the only one.

“I was really surprised to see that there were more than 100,000 people out there who thought it was worthwhile to retweet it, but maybe that’s just 100,000 people who really want to see an organ at Coors Field,” he said.

Ingram doesn’t think he’ll actually get to the 5,280,000 goal -- the current world retweet record is 3.4 million.

“But on the off chance that it did,” he said. “I think I would probably ask for maybe one night of being a Major League organist -- like a cold night in April when the stadium is about half empty. And then after that we could maybe convince them to hire a real professional.”

The Rockies don’t think it will get to 5 million either. However, Ingram’s is the most viral retweet campaign the organization has ever had, said Julian Valentin, the Rockies’ director of digital media and publications.

These types of requests -- “How many retweets for a jersey?” or “How many retweets for free tickets?” -- are common, Valentin said.

“And usually we just ignore them to be honest with you, just because we see them all the time,” he said. “But there was something about that one that we decided to (answer) and see where it took us.”

But while they can’t offer Ingram a job as an organist at this time, Valentin said the Rockies are going to host Ingram at an upcoming game along with a sneak peek at batting practice and a tour of the ballpark.

Stacy was KUNC's arts and culture reporter from 2015 to 2021.
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