Gosh the Enter Sandman intro got me big time. I got onto ‘tallica in 5th-6th grade and spent the next five years ODing on all of their stuff. Even the bad stuff, of which there is a lot. I only ever listen to a few of their early albums a couple times a year now and completely avoid the Black Album. But hearing the opening notes of Enter Sandman for the first time in forever got me.
The songs alone? Yeah metallica is way better. The whole closer entrance at a baseball game? Trevor’s walkout with Hell’s Bells is just better.
Would tell anyone who thinks otherwise to go watch Hoffman entering petco for his 473rd save on youtube. Trevor played his whole career with middling teams and got overshadowed by Rivera who pitched in the world series all the time.
The funniest bit my brother ever did when we were younger was coming up with fake stories of people we were related to. One time he told a kid in his class that his uncle was the guy who rung the bell at the beginning of “Hell’s Bells.” Still makes me laugh like once a month.
A related AC/DC tidbit: my grad school roommate earnestly thought the lyrics were “dirty deeds and the thunder chief.” Always good for a giggle from me.
I wouldn’t check out their advanced metrics if I were you!
This is an amazing bit. Absolutely stealing this
Hoffman was not better than Rivera. I’m not that much of a Padres homer. Let me make it clear I’m talking only about the entrance.
There was something so sick about the gates of hell opening and out jogs this 40 year old dude who’s gonna throw you three 75 mph pitches and you are gonna whiff on all three
That’s so good. My brother did this too! He told people our dad or our uncle (it changed frequently which didn’t help) was the actor inside the Darth Vader getup since the voice was dubbed over. At least a few folks genuinely bought it.
A guy I went to college with told everyone his uncle invented the Doritos Locos taco and got away with it way too any times
A guy I worked with had a bit where he claimed his uncle was a dwarf and was inside R2D2.
Pulled this in the eighth grade with Ben Roethlisberger (hindsight is 20/20 and all). It was his rookie year when the Steelers went 15-1 or something like it. Convinced my entire grade that he was my 3rd cousin on my mom’s side that I had only met once at a family reunion and it was when he was in college.
Everyone talking about the bits they or their buddies used to pull back in the day. And it’s sad that it’ll never happen again like this since everyone would just google most of these immediately to verify/disprove.
That said, I also had a buddy who constantly pulled a bit about how he’s a foreign exchange student from Ireland. His Irish accent wasn’t even good, but people believed him. I feel like people can still get away with a bit like this or the "Big Ben is my 3rd cousin), but it’s not quite the same as “Darth Vader was my dad”.
I was so over everyone making Alexander Hamilton jokes by the time I was like 10. This was pre musical too, it’s only gotten worse. So I started telling everyone we were related. Oh and Bethany Hamilton and Josh Hamilton were my cousins and we went to family reunions together all the time.
The Jeter-Rivera era Yankees were toxic to me. Could not stand them. And sure the New York ness played into Rivera’s hype … but the sandman coming out to put your team to sleep is almost too perfect for a closer. And Rivera and Enter Sandman being what they were was just too much. The fact that he and Hoffman did it with basically one historically elite pitch is pretty wild.
With that said the best use of Enter Sandman is Virginia Tech football games and it’s not particularly close IMO. I just spent 20 minutes watching YT videos from broadcasts and it’s so good every time. The in stadium experience looks sick too - the flag management is 
Woman I went to college with claimed the bassist from Linkin Park was her cousin. It was the perfect combination of interesting enough to want to ask a couple follow ups and make her the center of attention for a couple minutes (her goal) but not interesting enough to actually try and verify it. If she hadn’t later confessed it wasn’t true I would have believed her to this day.
My buddies wife grew up in Orlando and claimed she did all the Nickelodeon kids shows, double dare, guts, legends of the hidden temple etc. She even claimed it came down to her and Britney Spears for the Mickey Mouse club.
Ha so true.
Speaking of accents, when I was in Italy in college my buddy and I were walking around and pretending to be British in what at least for me was an AWFUL English accent. These two very cute American ladies our age started chatting with us. I immediately said, “Oh, I’m American - I was just goofing off with my buddy - who IS English.” So for literally a few hours as we hung out he had to keep up the charade even as his accent got worse and worse. He eventually just made up an excuse to bail which was regretful in some ways but had to happen.
Nothing like making up background stories with your friends to tell to strangers in pubs while studying abroad. One night in Dublin, without any prior planning, we told Irish girls we were Germans on a stag night and stuck with the bit long past the point they realized we were full of shit. More than 20 years later we still call each other by the names we adopted on the fly.
Also, I think I have a great name for new iteration of Strapped: Diners, Chip-ins, and Drives. Wocka wocka.
Love to see you standing up for my fellow Arizona alum, big of you to reach across the aisle!
Being a Sox fan I couldn’t stand Rivera until I was old enough to understand just how good he was. That being said, I think only judging the entrance, Hells Bells is better. It has more time to breathe for the jog in. Enter Sandman would be a much better walk up song.
