SOUND THE TRUMPETS
How SNY made Diaz’s entrance feel like a movie
“It is time,” SNY play-by-play man Gary Cohen said Sunday after New York Mets center fielder Brandon Nimmo grounded out to end the eighth inning at Citi Field, “to sound the trumpets.”
Rather than go to commercial, as is customary between innings, SNY director John DeMarsico cut to a shot of Mets closer Edwin Díaz taking one last swig of water in the home bullpen before making the most electric entrance in baseball.
Handheld camera operator Pete Stendel followed closely behind Díaz as he donned his cap and walked through the door in the right-field fence. Fans rose and readied make-believe brass instruments as the now familiar first beats of “Narco” by Blasterjaxx & Timmy Trumpet — Díaz’s personal anthem — blared over the stadium’s speakers.
The minute-long video of the spectacle shared on Twitter has been viewed more than 8 million times. It looks like something out of a movie, and that’s no accident. DeMarsico, who is in his third season directing games for SNY, studied film at North Carolina State and embraces what he describes as the inherently cinematic nature of the sport.
“I never understood why a baseball broadcast can’t be more like a movie, and that’s how I approach every day,” DeMarsico, 35, said in a phone interview. “I’m covering a game, but I’m going to pick a spot here or there where I’m going to show people something that they’ve never seen before.”
Díaz entering games to a bouncy trumpet beat is nothing new. After walking out in 2019 to “No Hay Limite” by Miky Woodz, the righthander’s dreadful first season in New York following a trade from the Seattle Mariners, Díaz reverted to “Narco” before the pandemicshortened 2020 season and has been using it ever since. With the first-place Mets enjoying their best season since they won the World Series in 1986 and Díaz striking out