They won three World Series championships in 1910, 1911, and 1913, and back-to-back titles in 19. One of the American League's eight charter franchises, the team was founded in Philadelphia in 1901 as the Philadelphia Athletics. The nine World Series championships, fifteen pennants, and seventeen division titles that the A's have won throughout their history is the second-highest in the American League after the New York Yankees. The team currently plays its home games at the Oakland Coliseum, with plans to temporarily move to Sutter Health Park in West Sacramento, California, for the 2025–2027 seasons (with an option for the 2028 season), prior to their permanent move to Las Vegas. The Athletics compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) West Division. So, the next time you are watching a pregame warm-up or see an athlete dancing with headphones in, you can know surmise that the music being played is all part of a greater plan for an athlete to get their mind in the right emotional state to perform well.The Oakland Athletics (often referred to as the Oakland A's) are an American professional baseball team based in Oakland, California. With a stimulated brain that has pulled the memory of a game-winning touchdown, last-second goal or buzzer-beater shot, athletes find that final notch to be fully locked in. That song for Valencia is “Can’t Stop” by the Red Hot Chili Peppers.Īnd that song has been proven to work for him as he has repeated as a national champion and is ranked No. “We do functional MRI scans,” Rogalsky said, “and during MRI scanning we are looking at changes in blood flow to different parts of the brain while they have headphones on and are, for this example, listening to a tone or melody that they have never heard before.”īecause it takes only a few seconds, athletes tend to have those last-second songs that can give them their final push to an excellent performance. “It only takes our brain a matter of a few seconds to hear those notes and instantly start thinking of those emotional memories again.”ĭoctors and researchers were curious at how the brain reacted to not just music but just words in general, so they came up with a way to test the reactions. “Our brains are really good at detecting familiar melodies or songs, so you don’t need words as you know, if you are listening to the radio and you hear those first few beats and you’re hooked,” Rogalsky said. Between making a huge and impactful play that makes the crowd jumped to their feet, to winning a championship, a song is often attached to that memory according to several athletes who were interviewed.Īnd when the brain hears that song, it can take only seconds to trigger that memory. Many athletes talk about specific events that happen to them. I’ll just put them in and lay down and sleep and make sure I get my rest so I am ready,” “I listen to a lot of different music, I mean country, rock, rap……relaxing throughout the whole tournament,” said Zahid Valencia, Arizona State’s 174-pound NCAA wrestling champion. This is why athletes tend to stick to a routine when prepping for a game: the same food, same exercise and same playlist.

Those athletes wearing headphones while they warmup are actually stimulating parts of the brain to heighten skills and memory.Ĭorianne Rogalsky, an assistant professor of speech and hearing science at Arizona State University, said, “When the amygdala is active it increases our ability to consolidate memories, which is why when we hear that emotional song before the big game….you sort of trigger emotionally that part of your brain.”

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