Mike Mixon: Baseball and music are my life

As long as I lived in this area as an adult, one of the most interesting sign boards along Route 1 has been the one for Keyboardamerica.com, just north of Lewes.

Besides being able to tap out a kindergarten-level version of “Mary had a Little Lamb” with my pointer fingers, I cannot play piano. However, the electronic sign near Red Mill Pond has a piano sitting on top, so it’s always caught my attention.

All that said, it’s the business-promoting messages scrolling across the sign that has us here today. Specifically, the one about Keyboardamerica owner Mike Mixon having been an organist for Major League Baseball. With the league’s season finally getting into full swing after a lockout pushed it back a few weeks, I figured now was as good a time as any to speak with Mixon.

First off, Mixon, 66, has been playing the organ since his mom, a single woman working two jobs, signed him up for lessons as a 5-year-old boy in Bellmawr, N.J. Soon after, with practice and encouragement of a couple of elementary school teachers, he began doing local events. He turned professional at 17. He has owned organ, keyboard and sound effects businesses from Maine to Lewes. His love for baseball is nearly as simple. He played Little League growing up and he’s loved it ever since.

“I would say I’m just a fan of baseball,” he said, while wearing a baseball-theme tie with a shirt under his button-down that had a big B on it for the Boston Red Sox.

The circle of professional organists suited to play at a stadium is small, so when Major League Baseball wanted to expand internationally, they reached out to the organ players for Dodgers, Yankees and Phillies.

“All three gave my name. It was such an honor and I was so excited,” he said.

Mixon played the organ for MLB into the early 2000s. He has countless stories about his experiences abroad – teaching famous soccer announcers the game of baseball because MLB thought having their voices would attract more fans; the shenanigans of ex-MLBers who found ways to entertain themselves after the games were over; getting more questions at the end of games because the reporters were more interested in the work he was doing; basically building a 10,000-seat stadium from the ground up in the days before a game; having to call the U.S. Embassy while in Rotterdam to get the sheet music for the Canadian anthem because it was before the internet.

“Setting up anything that made noise coming out of the speakers, I was in charge of. Playing music during the games was my time off,” he said.

Mixon said he took a less-is-more approach to sound effects during the game – organ or otherwise.

“My job is to make fans enjoy the game, even if the team loses. Sometimes, that means not letting sound effects get in the way. The fans didn’t come to hear me,” he said.

He recalls the memories with a you-should-have-been-there smile, but one story in particular garnered his strongest reaction. It was one of pure embarrassment and during his time as the organist for the Wilmington Blue Rocks.

As part of his job, Mixon stayed up on pop culture so he could insert new phrases into the game at the push of a button if the situation called for it.

At the time, the Blue Rocks had a player with the first name of Kenny. Also, at the time, the animated show South Park was in its early stages of becoming famous. Mixon said he wasn’t a watcher of the show, but when he realized the show killed off one of the main characters named Kenny at the end of each episode, he took the soundbite said by the other characters – “Oh my god, they killed Kenny” – and prepared it for use. Mixon said he changed god to gosh and sat on the sound effect for three weeks. Finally, the player Kenny got thrown out trying to steal second base. Mixon was ready and he pushed the button.

What happened next was pure agony for Mixon. The player started laughing. His teammates started laughing. The umpires started laughing. The fans started laughing.

“It was my biggest mistake. I broke one of my cardinal rules – don’t stop the game – and people at that stadium were laughing for a long time, and then it spread throughout baseball,” said Mixon, who emphatically answered, “No,” when asked if he ever used that sound effect again.

Overall though, he couldn’t speak more highly of his time as an organist with Major League Baseball and the Wilmington Blue Rocks.

“Baseball and music are my life,” he said.

Mixon’s joy while playing is undeniable, as readers can see in the accompanying video. He’s played that song a million times and he still smiles as he adds a little flair to the old ballpark standard. What you can’t see in the video is that Mixon is playing without a shoe on his left foot.

“I’ve got to wear women’s shoes when I play because men’s shoes are too wide,” he said, pointing down to slide-ons.

Joke of the Week:

Sticking with the baseball theme, Tom has contributed a couple of jokes. Most recently, it was a baseball-related. He said I could insert any non-Philly team, so of course I inserted the Phillies. He submitted it with the Orioles, which I couldn’t print because that’s my team. As always, joke submissions can be sent to cflood@capegazette.com.

Q: What do the Phillies and an opossum have in common?

A: They play dead at home and get killed on the road.