Dieter Ruehle (Transcript)

Robby Incmikoski:
This... Are you—yeah, it is, okay. We’re going to get you out of here. Hey, first thing I want to ask you real quick: Can you just describe—in general—how do you put into words the experience of being the organist for one of the most famous baseball teams in the history of the sport?

Dieter Reuhl:
How do I put that into words? Well, you said it all right there—it never gets old. I’ve been going to that stadium since I was a kid, which was mid to late ’70s when I started going. And even though there’s been some renovations at the stadium, it still has the familiar feel of when I was a kid. Obviously, it’s in the same location. It just has this vibe to it, and it’s a thrill to get to get to 📝 get to play the organ there.

Robby Incmikoski:
There are not many organ players left around baseball. We have one in Chicago. I think there are a few other places out there—Wrigley Field. I can’t even think off the top of my head who else has organ players. But what is the biggest key, and what’s the biggest challenge in a job like that? Is it just the timeliness between innings or pregame or whatever it is? What’s the day-to-day like doing that?

Dieter Reuhl:
I don’t know if there’s a “challenge”; it’s more like—like you said—day to day. We have a routine where we have a pregame meeting, and the organ is just a part of the show—which includes the public-address announcer, DJ, video presentation. Our routine is pretty scripted. After our meeting, we do a national anthem rehearsal. I accompany about 98 percent of the national anthems, and they’re mostly singers. The times I don’t, it’s usually somebody who accompanies themselves—like we had Brad Paisley. During—I think it was Game One of the World Series—he brought a guitar and accompanied himself. So I think the daily routine is probably like other baseball stadiums too: You get there, you have your prep meeting, you rehearse, and then you have the game.

Robby Incmikoski:
Yeah, no question about that. Now, this is more for the fans, because we as broadcasters get a chance to watch the game from different aspects; we get to see it from the field, the dugout, the press box—all that. What is it like from your seat, watching baseball and playing music? And how much does that feed into your love—how much do you love the game of baseball, and how do you tie your passion for music with your passion for baseball?

Dieter Reuhl:
I love baseball, and I think the two come together by... well, so when I’m working a game, I’m watching it like I guess a broadcaster would, and I’m doing my own form of “broadcasting,” you could say, by reacting to what has happened on the field—sort of a live soundtrack, live reacting to what’s going on out there. I prepare for it at home; I prepare for it at the stadium before games. And then sometimes ideas just come to me off the top of my head. So it’s like broadcasting, yet I’m not speaking with my mouth—I’m speaking through my fingers, you could say.

Robby Incmikoski:
Dieter, I remember one time—I want to say it was this past summer—was it a car fire that was happening in the parking lot, and you played “We Didn’t Start the Fire” by Billy Joel? Was that your... example of something like that? How do spur-of-the-moment things come up for you? And I know this from working in television—what kind of cooperation does it take to make sure game operations are on par? You can’t really go rogue, I guess, and play whatever you want at any given moment. Or can you?

Dieter Reuhl:
Well, in that situation, I kind of did, because we had a little window where I would normally fill, leading into our pregame show. I was going to play something totally different, until I noticed some smoke coming from the parking lot. I had no idea there was a car on fire—no idea. I think that got so much attention because the person who shot it—a fan sitting much higher than I was, and further down near the foul pole—captured everything. He captured what I was playing; he captured the car on fire. If you watch the video, I didn’t play very much of it—probably under a minute—before we went into our public-address announcement: “Hey, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Dodger Stadium. It’s time for your pregame show. Here’s our in-stadium hosts.” But the video just kind of is the thing that caught it all. I just thought maybe there was some trash burning or some weeds on fire. I didn’t know there was a car on fire.

Robby Incmikoski:
That’s hilarious. What was the reaction like for that? That was pretty hilarious when I saw it floating around Twitter.

Dieter Reuhl:
It took a day or two until that one video kind of went viral, you could say, and then there was all sorts of reaction. For the most part, I think it made people laugh. There were a few people like, “How dare you play that? There could be people in that car.” I guess, but you know. For the most part, the reaction I saw was pretty positive.

Robby Incmikoski:
I’m sure you get asked this a lot, as we get asked certain questions in our profession—but how did you get into playing the organ, and how did you get to this point? I know you do the LA Kings as well, and you’ve been doing that for a long time. So what’s it like going from someone who loves music to someone who is now the official organist for two major sports teams in arguably what is the biggest city in the United States of America?

Dieter Reuhl:
It’s pretty great. Going back to when I was a kid, the organ always spoke to me, and in those days there was no prerecorded music—it was all organ. I remember asking my dad, “What’s that song? What’s she’s 📝 she playing?” Helen Dell was the organist at Dodger Stadium in those days. Anyway, one thing led to another, and then I got the job in 2016 after Nancy Bea Hefley retired. But you’re right—after doing it for a lot longer over at the Kings, it’s great; it never gets old. It’s fun, yet there’s a lot of stress and pressure that goes along with it, and a lot of work. You’ve got to prepare, you’ve got to practice, and be ready for who knows what?

Robby Incmikoski:
Have you gotten requests from players, from coaches, from anybody like that just over the years, or no?

Dieter Reuhl:
Not really. A few years ago—Justin Turner—I don’t really interact with the players much. But a few years back, I accompanied Dave Roberts’s daughter on the national anthem. And like a day or two later, one of the bosses told me, “Go down”—this is during batting practice—“go down, say hello to Dave. He wants to talk to you.” “Oh, okay.” So I went down along the warning track in front of the dugout. Dave Roberts came over to me. “Dieter, hey, thanks for accompanying her.” And we got to chit-chat a little bit. Like about a minute or two later, Justin Turner came over to me and he was like, “Hey, I love when you play the walk-up music for Kiké Hernández.”
What I do is, the players have their own walk-up songs, but the DJ will play that. It’s the original track for those ten, fifteen seconds that the players walk to the plate. However, when the Dodgers are playing defense, when the visiting team is batting, and if there’s a grounder hit to Kiké, I will usually try to play the batter’s walk-up song—but the live cover version. And when Justin Turner told me he enjoyed that whenever a ball got hit to Kiké—that he liked my version of it—that was really cool. That felt really good.

Robby Incmikoski:
That’s really neat. The organ is such an iconic sound. When you step into an arena or a baseball stadium—because you just don’t hear it much anymore—we’re in an era of entertainment, high-level productions, people taking social media videos and putting them up on the board, that kind of stuff. To have something so iconic be at your fingertips—how special is that? What kind of meaning does that have to you?

Dieter Reuhl:
I’m grateful for it, because as you mentioned, not every team does have the organ anymore. But I do think the teams that still value it understand that the fans appreciate it, and I think there’s more good than bad from it. It’s not just for old people—there are people of all ages who seem to really enjoy hearing it. And I think it’s synonymous with a stadium. Like, if you go to a college football game, you’ll hear the brass of a marching band. Now there’s entertainment, and there are videos and contests and hosts—but you still have the bands, right?
And I think in a lot of venues for baseball, hockey, or even basketball, there are some who still understand the value of the organ. But I also think the responsibility lies with the organist, too—to make it not sound replaceable or recordable. Because some of the venues, obviously, a lot of the stadiums just have prerecorded organs, because unfortunately, I think the organists just mailed it in. They didn’t stay fresh or current, or for whatever reason.
Obviously, the technology is there just to press a button and there’s an organ recording. But does it have the same feel? I don’t think so. Obviously, I appreciate the Dodgers for having me around.

Robby Incmikoski:
First of all, can you just tell us—I don’t know anything about organs. I don’t know nothing about music. Can you tell me a little bit about what type of organ? I’ve seen the name “Roland Atelier”?

Dieter Reuhl:
That’s it.

Robby Incmikoski:
Can you just describe what type of organ it is and what the setup is like on that? Is it a basic organ? Like, if a fan’s looking, going, “Hey, what is he playing?”—what do you say to them?

Dieter Reuhl:
Yeah, it’s a Roland Atelier—A-T-E-L-I-E-R. The model is AT-80S, as in Sam—an older version from the early 2000s. I actually have the newest version over at the Kings, the AT-900.
Basically, these organs are all electronic, as opposed to some churches, where you’ll have pipe organs, or theaters—that’s totally different. That’s an actual air-driven instrument, like acoustic, like with a piano where you have a hammer hitting a string. The organs at ballparks are electronic—you just plug them in. They recreate sounds of either theater organs or church organs—and not just organs, but synthesizers, trumpets, all sorts of... I mean, hundreds of sounds at your fingertips in these organs. They’ve been around for decades, actually.

Robby Incmikoski:
Did I read correctly that you did the organ at the Olympics? Is that correct?

Dieter Reuhl:
Yeah, I’ve done six Olympics—five Winter and one Summer.

Robby Incmikoski:
So you’ve been all over the world to play the organ, right?

Dieter Reuhl:
Yeah, but it’s also DJing too. During my second year with the Kings in 1990, they gave me a tape deck to play cassettes. And it was weird, because in those days it was all organ. I’m glad I was open to learning it—that led to learning how to DJ. So I DJ’d at the US Open in Queens (tennis), the US Open Tennis Tournament, for ten years.
There was no organ at all, but I was playing music for Serena Williams or Roger Federer when they came out to warm up, when they were introduced, post-match. I remember playing part of “USA” for Serena. She looked up. She started dancing. So you know, DJs can also bring something to the table in terms of thought process. I’ve already branched out.
What was the question again? I’m sorry.

Robby Incmikoski:
How cool is it to do the Dodgers, the Kings, and a bunch of Olympics? How great a life experience is that? You know what I mean?

Dieter Reuhl:
I never would have thought I would get to go around the world doing what I love. I feel very fortunate—not just the Olympics, but like events with the NBA in Europe and in China, and just last year the very first NHL games in Australia.
The NHL wanted to give it a North American feel, so they brought me along, and I played two games in Melbourne, Australia. And it went over so well—there were times they put me up on the video board. The crowd really reacted favorably. They applauded, they were cheering because there’s a guy playing the keyboard live. You could see the keyboard.

Robby Incmikoski:
Right. Yeah. That’s really neat. You are from LA, if I read correctly. You were born and raised. So were you a good Dodger fan growing up your whole life? Were you into the Dodgers?

Dieter Reuhl:
Yeah, very much. But I was also into organists from around North America. And in Pittsburgh, there was Vince Lascheid.

Robby Incmikoski:
Yes, I’m aware of who Vince is, yep.

Dieter Reuhl:
There you go. There you to 📝 go. I grew up listening to him. From what I read, he was the organist for the Pirates and the Penguins throughout the ’70s, ’80s, and ’90s, up until he passed away—I think in ’09.

Robby Incmikoski:
Yes.

Dieter Reuhl:
Something like that?

Robby Incmikoski:
Yes.

Dieter Reuhl:
They still use his recordings sometimes at Pirates games.

Robby Incmikoski:
Every now and then, yes.

Dieter Reuhl:
He had such a unique sound. So even though I was born and raised in LA, whenever the Dodgers or the Kings would go on the road, I would hear the other teams’ organists as well. That was the thing with organ—each stadium or arena had their own unique sound. Like whenever the Lakers would play the Milwaukee Bucks, I’d hear that organ at Bucks games that had a unique sound—it was the same guy who played for the Brewers. That’s how I got “Bennie and the Jets”—he was playing “Bennie and the Jets” as a clap-along.
I was born and raised in LA, but I appreciated all the organists around all the sports.

Robby Incmikoski:
We’ve got a couple minutes left, then we’ll roll. The one thing this book is about is the ballpark experience. So when fans step into Dodger Stadium, they’re going to hear an iconic sound—and that is your organ playing when they step in. We know the famous Vin Scully “It’s time for Dodger baseball.”
There are so many things that are special about the experience at Dodger Stadium. I’ve been there at least thirty-five times for a game, so I’m well aware of what it’s like—and just how loud the music is. The BP music and all that—it’s so, so loud out there getting ready in pregame. Getting ready to do it. I’ll be by the visiting dugout, and I can barely hear myself think.
What is it like for you? And I know we talked about this at the outset, but it’s a special ballpark experience at Dodger Stadium, Dieter. Your main reason why—when this phase of your life is over and you look back on it—what do you think will come to mind for you?

Dieter Reuhl:
Well, I’m fortunate that it is Dodger Stadium, and we have a very big, loud, booming PA system that I think comes through really well on television and radio. Because sometimes you’ll struggle to hear music played at other venues if you’re watching on TV.
So I’m very grateful that we have such a great, clear sound system. I’m grateful for the connections—like where I am in the press box. There’s Maria who works in the dining room—she’s been there forever.

Robby Incmikoski:
I know Maria.

Dieter Reuhl:
Yeah, okay. Yeah, you mentioned Vin, but now we have Joe Davis, Orel Hershiser—those guys are so friendly. Rick Monday, the Dodgers radio broadcaster. But even walking in the way I walk in, past the reception area at the stadium near the front office—Jared’s there. So the personal connections are something I think I’m going to remember for a long time.
And just the venue itself, the way it’s built into the hill, right? And the way we shake on press level during a big moment—like Freddie Freeman’s walk-off grand slam—we’re underneath an overhang of the upper deck. So we bounce when the crowd is going crazy.
Sometimes we’ve had earthquakes before, and I’m like, “The crowd’s not moving—oh, this is an earthquake.” But usually, we’ll bounce along—we’ll rock and roll to the fans’ excitement. Things like that I’m going to always remember.

Robby Incmikoski:
And the last thing: If a fan’s coming in, what can they expect to hear when they step into that stadium? Not so much the specific run of show—I don’t mean that, because I know that varies from game to game—but just in terms of a general experience, if a fan has not had the chance to go out there, what would you say to them about what to expect at Dodger Stadium?

Dieter Reuhl:
It varies, game to game. And not to be too specific, but in general, they’ll hear a variety of prerecorded music and live music on the organ. They’ll hear Todd Leitz, our public-address announcer. But they’ll also hear moments when we don’t play anything at all—usually when the visiting team is batting, and you just hear the murmur of the crowd.
And then just expect—if someone’s going for the first time—just to take it all in, enjoy the view, and hopefully enjoy what they hear. And it never rains—you don’t have to bring an umbrella! It’s pretty rare. It’s very rare.