Don't You Dare Mute the Braves Organist on Live TV (UPDATE: They Didn't)

UPDATE: Just heard back from Nationals broadcaster F.P. Santangelo. He said they did not mute Braves organist Matthew Kaminski last night. Santangelo added he thinks Kaminski is "clever" and "we love that guy." What follows is the original report.

First of all, no, that is not the Braves organist in the photo above. I searched "Braves organist" first and nothing came up. Then I searched "MLB organist" and this photo of Dodgers organist Nancy Bea came up. It seemed to encapsulate an MLB organist so I went with it.

With that out of the way, one of the first tweets I saw this morning when I woke up came from Braves organist Matthew Kaminski. I didn't follow him, but a few people I do liked his tweet, so I took a look. What I saw was appalling. Apparently he was muted on the Nationals broadcast because they hate fun. That's a travesty and I demand satisfaction.

Organists are an eclectic bunch. They like to have fun at opposing players' expense. Kaminski is well-known for this. He played "Beat It" when Reese McGuire, who was arrested for allegedly masturbating in his car, came to the plate a few weeks back. Most people had a laugh. Apparently not everyone thinks it's funny.

Against the Nats yesterday, he played "Proud Mary" for Eric Thames, "Casey Jones" for Luis Garcia, "So What" for Juan Soto and others. Trying to figure out the connection between the song and player is always half the battle and fun. I'll leave it to you to interpret the meaning of each. But none of those warrant a muting. True, I don't know all the songs he played because I didn't watch the game. But if "Beat It" is played on live TV, I can't imagine anything being off the table.

Of course, I had to try and verify this claim of a muting. That's my job as a journalist. We dig, we research, we seek the truth on the most important issues. This was important to me, so I spent about 30 minutes trying to find a video. Alas, I was unsuccessful. I did find a couple of other people who said that Nationals announcers Bob Carpenter and F.P. Santangelo did indeed mute Kaminski. I DMd both of the announcers to verify this (as mentioned above) Santangelo said they did not mute him during the broadcast.

If a muting did ever occur, however, this is an egregious overuse of power. Whether Braves fan or Nationals fan, listening to the organist play walk-up tunes is entertaining. Baseball needs entertainment. It needs humor. It needs those stupid unwritten rules to be deleted so Fernando Tatis can do his thing. What it doesn't need is the Fun Police shutting down the party.

Let Kaminsky do his thing and then let the Nationals organist retort. That's how it should be. This is a creativity battle, a game within a game, and I refuse to allow it to be silenced.