Quintessential Mo-Ments No. 10: The Sandman enters to "Enter Sandman"

08/29/2013 9:04 AM ET

By Lou DiPietro

It shouldn't be hard to guess what song is playing in your head as you look at this image.(New York Daily News)

These days, it's almost a requirement that a Major League closer have a cool entrance theme, but it was (of course) Mariano Rivera who helped turn a fledgling moment of fun into a phenomenon.

Impressed after seeing the reaction that San Diego’s Trevor Hoffman got when he entered to “Hells Bells” during the 1998 World Series, the Yankees set about trying to find the perfect entrance for Rivera. After a few songs were tried, freelancer Mike Luzzi brought Metallica’s eponymous album to the park one day, hit play on Track 1, and a pairing as sweet as peanut butter and jelly was born.

"Our job was to try and get the building rocking. The gist of it worked, beginning to put the other club to sleep,” Luzzi once told Yankees.com of the choice, and it became so synonymous that when Metallica played Yankee Stadium in 2011, frontman James Hetfield even used a guitar pick branded with the Yankees logo and the number 42 just for that song.

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