Entertainment
Musical Baseball Feud Started Between Teams On Opening Day
By Jennifer Asencio
| Published
Baseball’s opening weekend started on March 25, 2026, with teams all over the country showing off their newest players alongside longtime fan favorites. One player, Edwin Diaz, switched teams over the winter during the offseason, transferring from the New York Mets to the Los Angeles Dodgers, and the Dodgers’ production staff wasn’t going to let the Mets forget it.
Diaz is a closing relief pitcher, meaning he would get called in toward the end of the game. Since relief pitchers come from the bullpen, which is often in the outfield, it takes a minute or two to make the hike across the field to the pitcher’s mound. Almost every player has some clip of music the stadium plays when they come out to the field or up to bat, but relief pitchers have a unique opportunity to really draw the moment out since they can play a couple of minutes of a walk-on song.
Since his time on the Seattle Mariners in 2018, Diaz’s walk-on music has been the song “Narco,” by Timmy Trumpet. Its distinctive opening bars are used by other players around the league as they come to bat, but the song’s piercing trumpet melody was highlighted by Diaz’s long walk across the field. When Diaz joined the Mets in 2019, he switched to another song, but it didn’t vibe for him, and he had a bad season.
In 2020 he switched back to “Narco,” and it became his trademark as he rose to prominence as one of the sport’s most distinguished and feared relief pitchers. SNY director John DeMarsico, in charge of the Mets broadcasts at that time, filmed numerous takes on his entrance to the field, one notable one inspired by the movie Raging Bull. Unannounced, the broadcast failed to switch to commercial when they were supposed to so they could highlight Diaz’s majestic trot onto the field.
It became such a phenomenon that in 2022, Timmy Trumpet himself offered to come play “Narco” live during Diaz’s entrance.
This spectacle was a big hit with Mets fans, but was widely ridiculed by fans of other teams, notably rivals such as the Yankees, Braves, Phillies, and Dodgers. The Mets were criticized for making a big deal out of the song, as well as pouring so much attention and cinematic artistry into the show.
After missing the 2023 season, Diaz returned to the Mets to pitch for 2024 and 2025, both seasons resulting in heartbreak with a near-miss to the World Series followed by a terrible season in which the team dropped in a freefall from first to last. Many players whose contracts were under free agency jumped ship; Diaz ran to the Los Angeles Dodgers.
He made his debut on March 28, 2026, against the Arizona Diamondbacks, and sure enough, “Narco” was his walk-on music. This is hardly remarkable in itself; players usually take their walk-on songs with them from team to team. What was remarkable was the Dodgers’ presentation.
The team made no attempt to hide their show being a pale imitation of the Mets’ show, complete with a live but inferior trumpeter. As much ridicule as the Mets faced for the spectacle they made of Diaz and his entrance music, the Dodgers used the song, and the opportunity, to rub his loss in their faces. Diaz would go on to close the game for the Dodgers, striking out two during the eighth inning; the Dodgers did not need to play the bottom of the ninth.
By mimicking DeMarsico, who was released from SNY for “creative differences,” the Dodgers did manage to show that the director’s impact is still felt on a sport whose administrators want homogeneity. Rob Manfred, the Commissioner of Baseball, stated last season that he expects to have all regional baseball broadcasts under one banner by 2028. SNY was the most obviously distinct broadcast due to DeMarsico’s creativity, but other holdouts include the Dodger, Yankee, and San Francisco Giant broadcasts, each of which are directly owned by team interests.
It also put a spotlight on DeMarsico’s absence from the Mets. The SNY broadcast is noticeably absent the tricks and techniques the former director used to enhance the game, such as the “PitchCom Robot” and split-screen shots of the pitcher and batter as they face off.
The Dodgers, unlike the Mets, have been highly praised for the show and its inclusion of a live trumpeter, seeming to forget that the man who wrote the song already performed it for Diaz when he was a Met. This is pretty typical, though. The Mets don’t usually receive favorable commentary from MLB, while the Dodgers are one of its flagship teams.
So, the season started with a mic-drop from the Dodgers that was definitely meant for Mets fans. Team rivalries are one thing, but should be settled on the field, not with the baseball equivalent of an epic rap battle. Though it would be poetic justice if the Mets responded by knocking the Dodgers and Diaz out of the postseason and finally winning a World Series while blaring “Narco” all over the stadium.
Entertainment
The best Dyson vacuums actually make vacuuming fun: See my favorites for 2026
Read my full review of the Dyson PencilVac.
The Dyson PencilVac Fluffycones takes the small space vacuum to a whole new level. It’s unbelievably slim and lightweight, and seamlessly scoots into tight crevices near furniture that don’t get dusted often enough. If there are certain spots in your home that you avoid cleaning just because it’s too tight of a squeeze, the PencilVac is about to change your life.
“Fluffy” references the ultra-soft material cushioning the four brush rolls, which provide a gloriously glide on hardwood you don’t want to scratch. The PencilVac’s short battery life and limited suction power wouldn’t be ideal in homes with more than just a few rooms or lots of carpeting.
No stick vacuum takes “stick” as literally as the Dyson PencilVac Fluffycones. It doesn’t have a main body with a battery pack, handle, or dustbin like any other traditional cordless vacuum. It’s just a wand and a funky cleaning head with four microfiber cones as brush rolls — the coolest little vacuum that’s truly grab and go.
The whole vacuum can fit just about anywhere, and tight squeezes are even more accessible with a cleaning head that can spin a full 360 degrees. The agile design led me to so many awkward dusty spots that other cordless vacuums can’t comfortably reach: the small chunks of floor between furniture and the wall, between island and bar stool legs, beside the toilet, or under the low-hanging credenza. The PencilVac had commendable hard floor performance in my apartment, offering near-perfect pickup of daily debris like cat hair and long human hair, kitchen crumbs, multiple types of cat litter, and dust.
Oh yeah, the Fluffycones cleaning head has two dust-detecting lasers. One laser projects out the front to point out the hair and tiny flecks lying ahead, and one laser projects out the back to illuminate anything that you just missed. It’s so satisfying that you’ll accidentally end up cleaning for much longer than you meant to, only to be cut off by the pitiful battery life.
With the precision nozzle wand attached, the PencilVac weighs in at just 2.9 pounds. This uniquely compact design makes cleaning cobwebs out of ceiling corners or dusting baseboards so much less of a pain. The wand’s diameter is just 1.5 inches the entire way down, which made it possible to vacuum behind my dresser without pulling it out a foot from the wall.
Entertainment
RAMageddon is making it harder to find the best Windows laptops. These 10 are actually worth it.
I highly recommend the Acer Swift X 14 for creatives who need a Windows laptop with a discrete GPU for running the most demanding sorts of apps. That includes photo and video editors, graphic designers, and animators.
Most professional creatives need a Windows laptop with a dedicated graphics card to handle their intensive workloads. I like the $2,000 Acer Swift X 14 with a top-end Intel Core Ultra 9 285H CPU and RTX 5070 graphics because it’s super powerful, fairly priced, equipped with a glorious OLED screen, and long-lasting, relatively speaking. You can go with a gaming laptop instead, but most aren’t nearly as compact.
This 14-inch desktop replacement is just as fast as an M5 MacBook Pro when it comes to demanding multi-core scenarios (i.e., most creative tasks). In my testing, its RTX 5070 GPU was more than capable of running graphically taxing games like Cyberpunk 2077 at over 100fps at 1080p resolution without the help of any AI upscaling technology, so it’s very well-suited for the likes of Adobe After Effects and Premiere Pro. (And other AAA games, obviously.)
For what it’s worth, I also tried a $1,700 Acer Swift X 14 AI with an AMD processor and RTX 5060 graphics, and the Intel/RTX 5070 version performed much better. The AMD/RTX 5060 one had 17 percent worse multi-core performance, so it couldn’t compete with the MacBook Pro, and it could barely run Cyberpunk at its 60fps minimum without upscaling tech. It also had a much worse battery life of about 6.5 hours per charge. My go-to RTX 5070 model lasted just over 10 hours, which is fantastic for a laptop with a dedicated GPU.
Note that the Swift X 14 is not a Copilot+ PC, meaning it doesn’t have a super-powerful NPU for running on-device AI tasks. This isn’t a deal-breaker for creatives, but it is for serious machine learning engineers and software developers.
The Swift X 14 comes with plenty of creator-forward ports (like a microSD card slot) as well as a crisp, vivid 120Hz OLED touchscreen. It’s a real attention-getter on an otherwise plain laptop. You can’t draw on it with the included stylus, but you can do so on its haptic trackpad. It functions kind of like a built-in drawing pad.
Entertainment
I tested the top MacBook alternatives: See which Windows PCs actually beat Apple
The 2026 Dell XPS 14 is a stylish investment for aesthetic-forward power users — I’m thinking content creators who might also be occasional gamers. You’re probably wishing the 14-inch MacBook Pro was even sleeker and a little more portable, and you may be getting impatient waiting for Apple’s touchscreen OLED upgrade. You’re definitely open to carrying around dongles.
I tested two configurations of the handsome XPS 14. The one I recommend as the best MacBook Pro alternative is an upper mid-tier model with an Intel Core Ultra X7 358H processor and a dazzling tandem OLED touchscreen (an optional upgrade). It’s no battery life champ, but it keeps pace with the base Pro in multi-core workloads, and its integrated GPU is excellent for demanding creative software and casual gaming.
The XPS 14 is easily one of the most elegant laptops I’ve ever encountered. Dell trimmed down its all-aluminum design for 2026, making it a touch thinner and nearly half a pound lighter than a 14-inch Pro. It’s available in two MacBook-y finishes: graphite and shimmer (coming later this year). Its lattice keyboard takes some adjusting to if you’re used to regular island-style keyboards, but it translates to a modern, minimalist look. Its seamless glass haptic touchpad looks equally clean. Its speakers are above-average for a Windows laptop — they’re just a little more echoey than a MacBook’s.
The XPS 14’s 2.8K OLED display is a $150 upcharge that I can endorse. It’s not as bright or crisp as a MacBook Pro’s Liquid Retina XDR display, but it’s more vibrant and just as smooth. (The standard IPS version is much duller in comparison.) Keep in mind that OLED won’t be a thing on a Mac until late 2026 at the soonest.
The Core Ultra X7 chip is a close rival of Apple’s M5 chip when you work it hard. It doesn’t feel as snappy in single-core scenarios, but trails the current MacBook Pro by only four percent when used for multi-core tasks. (That’s nothing.) What’s more, the Core Ultra X7’s Intel Arc B390 iGPU is comparable to an entry-level discrete graphics card. It’s perfectly capable of running graphically taxing titles like Cyberpunk 2077 with the help of games’ AI upscaling tech.
The XPS 14’s stamina is lacking compared to the M5 MacBook Pro, though it really depends on what you’re using it for. It held out for 10 hours and 19 minutes in our video rundown test, which is a full workday at least, but not great. (Its Apple counterpart ran for over 21 hours in the same test.) That said, its 120Hz OLED display dips down to just 20Hz when you’re viewing static content, so it should last much longer when it’s not looping a video.
If you want an XPS 14 with MacBook-beating battery life in almost any scenario, look into the $1,999.99 base model with a Core Ultra 5 325 chip. It lasted 22 hours on the dot in our video rundown test, and its refresh rate can drop to a mere 1Hz for static content. Just know that you’ll sacrifice a good chunk of power: It offers 35 percent worse multi-core performance than the Core Ultra X7 version. Speed-wise, it’s most akin to an M2 MacBook Air from 2022. (The cheaper Dell 14S with the Core Ultra 7 355 chip performs slightly better and lasts even longer, FWIW.)
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