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MLB Teams Tweet Lyrics to ‘Total Eclipse of the Heart,’ Win Eclipse Week

On Sunday night, as people across the country made pinhole projectors out of cereal boxes and flocked to the path of totality, the social media man...

On Sunday night, as people across the country made pinhole projectors out of cereal boxes and flocked to the path of totality, the social media managers behind America’s true pastime decided they would not be eclipsed by, well, the eclipse.

Lisa Braun, Director of Digital Media for the Cincinnati Reds, and Julian Valentin, Assistant Director of Digital Media & Publications for the Colorado Rockies, were chatting about a bunch of social media topics when Lisa had a bright idea: a Twitter singalong to celebrate the eclipse.

They quickly settled on a song – Bonnie Tyler’s ’80s classic, ‘Total Eclipse of the Heart.’ Cue music:

“Everybody was talking on social media about making their eclipse soundtrack, and that seemed to be the big song that everybody was suggesting,” says Lisa.

Next, they looped in Joel Hammond, Assistant Director of Communications for the Cleveland Indians, and each chose a line from the chorus to tweet with a relevant GIF. They knew everything else would fall into place from there.

“We didn’t want it to seem too planned,” says Lisa. “We just wanted to make sure we got it going, and then it took off. We knew the other teams would jump in.”

How could they resist singing along to one of the top karaoke songs of all time, especially after this opening?

Sure enough, it only took a couple minutes for the Phillies and the Nationals to catch on:

“I thought one from the Nationals was really clever, with the lights going out,” says Lisa.

Hat tip to the Nationals for finding the perfect GIF in a matter of minutes.

As team after team joined in to sing a line, the buzz started spreading to fans across the country.

“When we talk to each other, fans seem to love that,” says Lisa, adding that engagement on the Reds’ tweet was eight times higher than average. “They look at the major sports team accounts as accounts that are putting out information, and when they see that there’s a person behind it, it’s more fun.”

And while the competition between teams might be fierce on the field, it’s camaraderie between front office staff members from teams across the league that makes Twitter events like this (and the Reds’ epic snowball fight with the Rockies) possible.

“Even though we’re competitors, we can kind of put our differences aside to do something fun off the field,” says Lisa. “We don’t have direct competition with the other Major League Baseball teams because we have our own markets, so it’s great to bounce ideas off of each other.”

And as the great Bonnie Tyler says so profoundly, “we’ll never be wrong together.” Scroll through the rest of these lyrics to turn your day right around, bright eyes.

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The Libris team is proud to work with more than half of MLB teams, including the Reds, the Rockies and many of the other teams who belted out ‘Total Eclipse’ lyrics on Monday. Keep it up, guys.

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