by Dave Maier
If you google the name “Matt Shoemaker,” the first page of hits is all about the gentleman pictured here, a pitcher for the Los Angeles Angels. It seems that he has recently undergone season-ending surgery on his pitching arm, a shame as the Angels are still in the mix for an AL wild-card spot. People also naturally search, Google tells us, for his Angel teammates, including pitchers Garrett Richards and Jered Weaver. At the bottom of the page, however, we see eight further related searches, including “matt shoemaker injury” and “matt shoemaker fantasy” (the latter no doubt a reference to “fantasy baseball"). These obviously refer to that same person; but among the eight we also see “matt shoemaker music.” What’s that about?
Clicking, we do find another reference to our ballplayer (referring to his “walk up music,” which is typically played over the PA as a batter approaches the plate to bat, although in this case since our man is a pitcher and plays in the AL, that probably hasn’t happened all year). But we also find several references to another person entirely. One of them reports the sad news that this person, an accomplished sound artist with many releases to his name, recently passed away at a tragically young age.