LOS ANGELES — A familiar sound is returning to Lakers games. Dieter Ruehle is coming back as the team’s organist and musical director, a decade after resigning following a 16-year run that ended shortly after Kobe Bryant’s final game in 2016.
Ruehle will continue as the Dodgers’ organist and retain his role as musical director and organist for the LA Kings. His return reunites him with the Lakers while extending a career spent providing the soundtrack to some of the biggest moments in Los Angeles sports.
Ruehle was the Lakers’ organist as they won five championships and appeared in seven NBA Finals from 2000 to 2010. He was also behind the keyboard when the Kings won the Stanley Cup in 2012 and 2014. Since he joined the Dodgers full-time in 2016, they have won three World Series titles, made five World Series appearances and advanced to the National League Championship Series eight times. Ruehle was also the organist at the 2026 Winter Olympics in Milan as the United States, the first time since the 1980 "Miracle on Ice," won an Olympic gold medal in men's hockey. Snoop Dogg made sure to single him out while providing commentary at the Games.
For Lakers fans, his return restores a familiar part of the game experience from the championship years of Shaquille O’Neal and Bryant, and later Bryant and Pau Gasol. For fans who have come to know his work through the Dodgers and Kings, it offers another opportunity to hear a musician whose song choices have become an attraction of their own.
His ability to find the right song for a moment has become his signature. A few notes can encourage a chant, acknowledge a player or deliver a joke to fans paying close attention. A few years ago, he played “Oh, What a Beautiful Mornin’” at a Dodgers game that stretched past midnight, followed by Chicago’s “Saturday in the Park” because the game had carried into Saturday. Billy Joel’s “The Longest Time” also made its way into the soundtrack.
Lon Rosen, the longtime Dodgers executive who was named the Lakers’ president of business operations earlier this year, gave Ruehle his first chance to perform professionally for the Los Angeles Lazers indoor soccer team in 1984, when Ruehle was 15. He described his appeal to me in 2019, offering an assessment that helps explain why Ruehle has become such a recognizable part of the Los Angeles sports experience.
“I love what he does,” Rosen told me. “He really adds so much to the experience. It’s not just background music. You look forward to hearing what he’s going to play next.”
Now, a decade after his departure, Lakers fans will once again get to listen.