Is Timmy Trumpet the coolest person on Earth? I don’t know. Let’s check the tape:
Hmm, ok, yeah, unless it’s Edwin Díaz, it’s Timmy Trumpet. The coolest person on Earth is in that video, and I’m betting on it being the one with the mic’d-up brass.
To recap how we got here:
Five years ago, this trumpet-playing Australian DJ had a day off during his European tour. Dutch DJ duo Blasterjaxx (what a four words) invited him to the studio, showed him this ‘Narco’ song they were working on, and asked if he wanted to play the trumpet over what they’d had as a flute part. He said yes, the song was released, it wasn’t a big deal, there was still no clear path to Timmy Trumpet blasting the horn for forty thousand New York baseball fans losing themselves in the moment. Then, a Mariners employee named Gregg Greene found the song, thought Díaz might like it, found out Díaz did like it, and made it his entrance music. That was in 2018. This was the year it finally blew up. It took upwards of three baseball seasons for Díaz to make his way to the Mets, begin using the song anew, become the most dominant pitcher in baseball (going by strikeout rate here), watch the Mets get good around him, and create one of those sports rituals that every Mets fan will remember with gripping nostalgia for the rest of their life. Next year, this will not be as fun. This year, it is the best. And Timmy Trumpet has gone from playing the trumpet with some fellow DJ’s in a studio in the Netherlands to unwitting command of the spotlight in the most revelrous moment of one of the largest fanbases in American sports.
This is going to end one of three ways. Either the Mets win the World Series, and we hear the trumpets as Díaz comes on to mop it up and Queens erupts into true pandemonium, the Mets lose the World Series and it doesn’t come at Díaz’s expense but he does come in for the top of the ninth to keep it within four or whatever and there’s that one last gasp of summer, or the Mets lose and it comes on Díaz’s watch and we get a moment where Citi Field goes from trumpets to tragedy while someone, probably the Cardinals, probably Lars Nootbaar and Albert Pujols, conquers the unconquerable and celebrates in stunned New York silence.
Pretty good list of options for the Mets-ambivalent baseball fan.
Dale Earnhardt Jr. Is Also Cool
North Wilkesboro Speedway rode again last night, hosting one of its first races after roughly a decade of abandonment. In the culmination of years of effort by Dale Earnhardt Jr. to resurrect the once-overgrown, always-legendary racetrack, North Wilkesboro hosted a race on the CARS Tour, more or less a low-level minor-league stock car series. Earnhardt drove, finishing third while Carson Kvapil, an up-and-comer within Earnhardt’s JR Motorsports franchise, won. The stands were far from empty, and when Earnhardt started to charge, the place started rollicking. The place came back to life.
It feels a little Springsteenian, a legendary short track dying only to one day come back. It feels a little defiant, a stock car race on a Wednesday night in August drawing the eyes of a fanbase constantly told it and its sport are dying, fading away. It feels a little Hollywood, sports’ most famous orphan climbing towards the front, not quite taking the lead, then grabbing a beer with one of his protégés over in victory lane. Whatever it was, it was a moment, a moment worth its weightlessness in gold. And while it’s natural to want to take something from the moment and apply it to the sport as a whole—“Should Dale Earnhardt Jr. run NASCAR?”—it’s probably best, for a day, to let the moment speak.
In other NASCAR news, Bubba Wallace is going to move into the #45 car for the playoffs, shifting Ty Gibbs over to the #23. The decision gives 23XI Racing a better chance in the owners’ playoffs, for which the #45 qualified even though Kurt Busch withdrew from the drivers’ playoffs due to his ongoing concussion symptoms.
It’s a weird setup, but it’s harmless and a little interesting. NASCAR basically has a private championship that’s meaningless to the general public in addition to its public championship, of greater interest to fans (and broadcasts). It operates by the same rules, but the points track by car, not by driver, meaning within it, the #45 is in and the #12 is out. I do wonder if a team would ever try to optimize for this championship, throwing specialists into a single car for different races to try to chase prize money. I guess this is kind of what Kaulig does with the #16 and its road course specialists. I guess it would have worked last year and gotten them into the playoffs had they found a way to run enough races.
David Bote’s Back
It isn’t the end.
With active rosters expanding to 28 men, the Cubs are calling David Bote back up to the big-league club. Another shot. We hold our breath.
Sir Big Spur Remains
Three days after announcing their live gamecock would be renamed ‘The General’ due to a comb-trimming dispute, South Carolina announced just now that they’ve gotten the name Sir Big Spur back, presumably for money, though that’s unconfirmed. It’s either money, threats, earnest convincing, or paying the new owners to do something they think is animal abuse.
I hope it’s money.
New Alt Codes
One of the things we think is important here at The Barking Crow is using the little accent marks and those sorts of things when writing non-English names (and using the right ones, not just changing a Red Sox player’s name because its transcription is a homograph with a slur and that makes us uncomfortable).
Halil Dervişoğlu is going to test us. Might be a copy-and-paste situation.
Dervişoğlu is a Dutch striker (yes, Burnley got a striker) of Turkish descent officially employed by Brentford, but not getting playing time to Brentford, so now out on loan to Burnley. Expect him to average a goal and a half per game before personally buying out his own contract with Brentford to stay with the Burnleys when the loan is up.
Also joining the club is Jordan Beyer, a defender from Borussia Monchengladbach (Monchengladbach is the most fun German word). That checks all the boxes, though the lads (front office lads, not on-the-pitch lads this time) are in on at least one other lead, chasing a guy from Swansea. It doesn’t sound like he’s coming, but the fact Burnley’s been offering nearly ten million pounds does indicate they have ten million pounds available. Hopefully we see those in the January window.
Meanwhile, a few other Championship clubs are still selling off players, which opens the door a bit more for the Burnleys, who already sold all our old good guys.
The Sens and the Salaries
One funny thing that happens when you start following a team with no real ramp-up, just full gas from neutral, is that you gradually pick up on the big things people who follow the team closely have hanging over their heads. Such as, evidently, the 2024-25 salary cap question, which we learned today is a question for the Sens. We are two years away from this being an issue, per Ian Mendes. We will now add it to the list of things sneaking back into our thoughts late at night when the dishwasher’s running a little loud and we can’t quite doze off.
According to Mendes (and this is hard for me to read because Ian I am colorblind and it is bright on my screen in here why did you do this in red and green), it sounds like the Sens can probably end up extending all four of Tim Stützle, Alex DeBrincat, Jake Sanderson, and Artem Zub, but if they do that it’s going to start getting real, real tight. One alternative? Their prospects could underperform expectations. Don’t want that. Would prefer a salary cap crunch.
**
Viewing schedule:
2:10 PM EDT: Royals @ White Sox (MLB TV)
If we see Joe Kelly today, it’s probably because God loves us. If Joe Kelly pitches poorly, it’s probably because Satan (Rob Manfred) retains more power than any of us wish.
7:00 PM EDT: West Virginia @ Pitt (ESPN)
It’s called the Backyard Brawl. The social contract demands that we watch.
