Having watched on TV as new Phillies closer Jhoan Duran made his electric entrance Friday night, I think that just once, I’d like to have my own walk-up music.
Just once I’d like to stroll into whatever they’re calling the Sixers’ arena these days and as I head toward the press section have the PA guy intone, “AND STARTING AT DAN QUINN LOOKALIKE …”
And then they would play “Freebird.” The entire song.
Kidding. Wouldn’t mind if they played the opening bars of The Who’s “Baba O’Riley” or Bruce Springsteen’s “Jungleland,” though – especially the part that can be heard at the 1:55 mark:
The midnight gang’s assembled, and picked a rendezvous for the night
They’ll meet ‘neath that giant Exxon sign, that brings this fair city light.
(I’m also partial to that old Alan Parsons Project song, “Sirius,” though that should remain sole provenance of the Michael Jordan-era Chicago Bulls, as shown in this video from the 1996 NBA Finals. I mean, talk about electric.)
Duran, the Dominican-born reliever acquired from Minnesota at Thursday’s trade deadline, emerges from the bullpen to two songs written by Puerto Rican rappers, “El Incomprendido” (by Farruko) and “Hot” (by Daddy Yankee), as the stadium lights are extinguished and fans are urged to raise their cell phones aloft. Fiery images are shown on the video boards, and the entire stadium ignites.
According to a July 2024 piece in the Minnesota Star-Tribune, Duran’s entrance debuted late in the 2023 season, when he became the Twins’ full-time closer. And now it has been passed on to the Phillies. Pretty cool.
Of course, every closer has walk-up music nowadays. Hitters, too, but it seems to resonate that much more when the closer makes his way across the outfield grass, like an Old West sheriff ambling down Main Street, fixing to maintain order.
This practice can be traced back to 1972, when the Yankees played “Pomp and Circumstance” every time their closer, Sparky Lyle, was summoned from the bullpen. And here was the twist on that – Lyle entered the fray not on foot, but rather via a pinstriped Datsun. (Other teams shuttled their relievers into games via golf cart. Good times.)
NorthJersey.com reported in 2022 that Lyle’s music was the idea of Marty Appel, then the Yankees’ assistant publicist, and it was introduced the same year the Chicago White Sox began playing the overture from “Jesus Christ Superstar” every time slugger Dick Allen came to the dish.
“I felt within me that there was music going on in my head for things going on on the baseball field,” Appel told NorthJersey.com. “(And) I just felt there was something theatrical about his performances.”
The Yankees discontinued the music two years later, but Lyle was effective throughout his seven years in New York, saving 141 games, making three All-Star teams, winning two World Series and earning the 1977 Cy Young Award. (Lyle also spent two-plus seasons with the Phillies late in his 16-year career.)
Years later, another Yankees’ closer, Mariano Rivera, entered games to the strains of Metallica’s “Enter Sandman,” which didn’t really suit so regal a man (and which Rivera reportedly didn’t like). But it was cool anyway, and as we learned in “Bull Durham,” you don’t mess with success. Over 19 seasons Rivera, who sawed off so many bats with his signature cutter that he could have built his own wing in Cooperstown with the scraps, assembled the best career of any closer ever. So no way do you alter his walk-up routine.
More recently the Orioles have staged a big to-do when their closer, Felix Bautista, has come on the scene, first playing a recording of Omar Little, a character from “The Wire,” whistling “A Hunting We Will Go,” then following it up with the song “O Fortuna,” by the long-ago German composer Carl Orff.
The whistle was a particularly nice touch, seeing as “The Wire” was filmed in Baltimore and Omar (played brilliantly by the late Michael K. Williams) was a badass character … indeed. But Bautista, whose stature (6-8, 285) earned him the nickname “The Mountain,” underwent Tommy John Surgery in October 2023, and after a decent start to this season has been shut down by shoulder problems. So the team’s production values have suffered almost as much as its on-field fortunes.
Duran’s routine, blessedly free of any Duran Duran, falls right in line with all that. It is entertaining and uplifting. It promises to energize a ballpark that routinely rocks anyway. And it will work only as long as he does. Closing is a precarious practice. Sometimes, sad to say, the guys in the black hats get the drop on the sheriff. Lose some velo or miss your spots once too often, and it won’t matter if they play “The Battle Hymn of the Republic” when you enter; the boos will drown it out.
Still, these intros are great theater, not to mention an inspiration to us all. So feel free to suggest that you should have walk-up music when you arrive at your place of business. Unless, of course, you fear that you might end up languishing beneath a giant Exxon sign as a result of that request. Your call.