Come for the broadcast, stay for the Mets game (published 2022)

On a sticky August evening at Citi Field, near the end of a crucial Mets victory against division rival Atlanta, closer Edwin Díaz threw his final warm-up pitch and began his long, familiar journey from the right field bullpen to the mound for the first half of the ninth inning. But something unusual happened: the television broadcast did not end in a commercial.

Instead, the camera followed Díaz as he walked through the bullpen door, started jogging and walked through the grass on the outfield. The trumpets of “Narco,” Díaz’s beloved entrance song, were fed directly into the broadcast from the stadium’s public address system, giving fans at home the feeling that they had seen it all happen in person. Or maybe they were in a bullring in Spain. Anyway, there were chills.

The broadcast event was designed and executed by John DeMarsico, 35, the game director for SNY, the Mets’ regional sports network.

“We had covered him before, but we never cut a commercial break to show it all,” DeMarsico said. “And we never sent the camera crew out there to do the dramatic shot from behind. I had it in my back pocket all year, and I was waiting for the right game to do it.

That same game had featured Jacob deGrom’s return to Citi Field after losing more than a year to serious arm and shoulder injuries. DeMarsico gave deGrom, the Mets’ co-ace, his own star moment, skipping a commercial break to show his warm-up pitches in the first inning. That time, Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Simple Man” was streamed on air.

In both cases, the decorations had been discussed earlier in the season but were decided on the fly, with DeMarsico sensing the mood in the stadium and improvising a cinematic response.

Regional sports networks get their share of abuse, with complaints about streaming blackouts from fans and Major League Baseball’s frequent attempts to build its audience through other alternatives, such as Apple TV+, NBC’s Peacock streaming service or other platforms. But in a medium that may seem old-fashioned to some, SNY’s theme all year has been innovation.

In this case, the network builds on what was already a strength. The chemistry of the network’s broadcast team — play-by-play announcer Gary Cohen and analysts Ron Darling and Keith Hernandez — has long powered SNY’s ratings, even if the team on the field sometimes didn’t draw as much attention.

“The team has always been experimental,” said Darling, who along with Cohen and Hernandez has held court over broadcasts full of crazy side paths, movie recommendations and inside jokes that have been going on since 2006. Darling sees their interactions as a sign of respect for the viewer. “I think there is fear among some broadcasters who don’t trust that their fan base is intelligent enough to see anything different. Many broadcast teams are afraid of alienating their core fans who will criticize anything that is out of the ordinary, especially when criticism is out in the world today is so direct.”

As comedian Jerry Seinfeld said during one of his many trips to the booth, “It’s a TV show, it’s not just a game.”

DeMarsico, with the support of producer Gregg Picker, has quietly helped the footage of their broadcasts catch up with the quality and innovation of the story. And as a crafty reliever, he’s done it with a formidable gimmick.

He uses unusual camera angles and forgoes the usual midfield shots at crucial moments. Instead, he films the action behind the right fielder or near the visitors circle.

He uses split screens to highlight pitcher-batter confrontations. In a tense at-bat between Díaz and Milwaukee Brewers outfielder Christian Yelich earlier this season, DeMarsico started the shot with Díaz’s face in the left side of the frame. Then he faded into Yelich’s face on the right, causing Díaz to fade out. Fans had a chance to actually see the pitcher and batter stare at each other.

These techniques attempt to bring out the tension that is already in the game, but which was previously difficult to visualize.

“Baseball is inherently cinematic, more so than other sports,” DeMarsico said. “In football and basketball there is so much speed. In baseball there is no clock. The geography of the field is very structured. You can set the scene and capture the confrontations between hitter and pitcher like a duel in a Western.”

After decades of baseball games looking nearly identical from network to network, these shots can feel surprisingly original.

For DeMarsico, it’s a natural collision of his two passions: baseball and film. Before starting his SNY career with an internship in 2009, he studied film at North Carolina State University. Conversations about his work are peppered with the names of directors, both famous and unknown. He bases his methods of creating tension on the work of Brian De Palma and cites Martin Scorsese’s famous tracking shot at the Copacabana in “Goodfellas” as his inspiration for the Díaz bullpen moment. He also mentions Nicolas Winding Refn — the Díaz-Yelich moment was inspired by Refn’s 2009 Viking epic “Valhalla Rising” — and Sergio Corbucci, who directed some of the most violent spaghetti westerns.

In Saturday night’s win over the Philadelphia Phillies, DeMarsico repeated Díaz’s bullpen shot, but this time it started in black and white and then transitioned to color as the pitcher took the field, an obvious nod to “The Wizard of Oz.”

Then there’s Quentin Tarantino, who influenced perhaps DeMarsico’s most lighthearted innovation: the “Kill Bill” filter. The Mets lead the majors in hitting batsmen this year, and Manager Buck Showalter’s escalating irritation is a running joke among Mets fans. The broadcast team went to work on it, using the same effect Tarantino used in the “Kill Bill” films when their protagonist’s thirst for revenge was whetted: a red tint, a sound known as the “Ironside Siren,” and a double exposure of her face and a memory of the traumatic event.

DeMarsico used the sound and color a few times, but knew something was missing. So he had his crew create a montage of the most egregious hit-by-pitches of the year and superimposed it on Showalter’s face, implying that the manager was reliving a season of insults every time a Met got hit.

Some baseball purists may object to such antics, but it certainly draws attention to the network. The clip of Díaz’s entrance went viral, now having been viewed more than eight million times on Twitter.

For a sport that has long battled traditionalism in its efforts to attract younger fans, these innovations can seem avant-garde. But they could also provide a roadmap of sorts for how baseball might modernize its other broadcasts — a process that began almost immediately when Apple TV+ recreated the Díaz entrance almost shot for shot in its presentation of a Mets game.

But with the Mets on track for more than 100 wins this regular season, and DeMarsico at the helm of their broadcasts, a little competition isn’t a concern. “I’ve got a few tricks up my sleeve,” he said.

That kind of self-confidence might explain why the SNY production team has been given so much room to experiment, even sacrificing advertising budgets.

“It’s not something we want to do very often, because the commercials pay the bills,” DeMarsico said of the times they’ve stuck with the action on the field. “But there’s a trust factor with SNY. We pick our spots and we make smart choices, and as long as it doesn’t become a day-to-day thing, we can do things like this and create moments that are special for the people at home.”

He grinned and added, “Maybe eight million views is worth a commercial break.”