Elly De La Cruz relishes his role as Home Run Derby coach, hype man
ATLANTA — At some point in his career, Elly De La Cruz would like to do the Home Run Derby. He’s very confident that he’d win it. Monday wasn’t that day as he watched from the sidelines, but no one got closer to the action or had more fun than the Reds’ shortstop.
De La Cruz was a part of two different hype/towel teams. His guys — Junior Caminero and Oneil Cruz — were the second and third-best performers on Monday at Truist Park (Cal Raleigh took home the title).
Throughout the night, De La Cruz was waving towels to cool Caminero and Cruz, taking videos, recording on Instagram live and appearing on the ESPN broadcast to serve as an official hype man. He had a constant smile on his face.
“Elly is like my brother,” Oneil Cruz said via an interpreter. “It always feels good when you have someone on your side like him giving me another push.”
At the end of the night, De La Cruz was leaning back in his chair at his locker looking like he had just participated in the derby himself.
How would De La Cruz evaluate his performance as a coach?
“Good. Really good. I was helping my friends.”
De La Cruz knows Oneil Cruz pretty well, but he didn’t really know Caminero that well before De La Cruz joined his team on Monday.
De La Cruz said that he joined both Cruz and Caminero’s teams because they’re both Dominican like De La Cruz. “I’ll support my people,” De La Cruz said.
De La Cruz said the best part was “everything.” But still, he wonders if there could have been a piece of advice that could have helped push one of his guys over the top.
“It didn’t work because neither of them won,” De La Cruz said. “But we had fun. I had so much fun. Like always.”