Why does iTunes sometimes decide it HAS to stay open at any cost and to reopen every time I quit it up to crazy numbers of quit or force quit?
https://thebitguru.com/projects/itunes-patch

Play Button iTunes Patch
The application will patch the Remote Control Daemon to prevent it from starting iTunes whenever you press the play button on the keyboard or an external remote control.


This does require SIP to be disabled, but it can be re-enabled once you've run this patch.
This does not work with macOS 10.13. Since you're still on 10.9 it should work fine, however I have not tested it myself.