How to Make Baseball Cool

I have a confession to make. I like baseball. I am lying. I LOVE baseball. I love it more than basketball. (Yeah I know that goes against my “blackness”) Football is my absolute favorite (of course it is) but baseball is comfortably in second. It was the first sport I was introduced to. I still remember my mama teaching me how to field ground balls. I remember the excitement that I would have as a kid when we got tickets to go see an Astros game. My brother and I would go outside and play catch and imaginary baseball situational games for hours on end. Baseball was…dare I say…cool. Recently I posted on Facebook my displeasure about my team, the Houston Astros, losing a game and I was ragged on my many of my followers. “What is this white guy sport you speak of?” is what one of the comments said. I responded, “there are plenty of black players in baseball…they just don’t speak English.” I know he knows that. Hell baseball ain’t hockey (even though they are a couple of playing that now too). But even though I love baseball, I know what he is saying. Baseball has a “cool” problem. It just isn’t cool right now. Football and Basketball are all exciting. They are like hip hop. Baseball is like the banjo. Nothing cool about a banjo. And in recent months baseball execs have finally wisened up and admitted they need to inject some energy into the sport. Because I love it some much, I have some ideas for them that would definitely spice it up some.

Home runs need to be worth more than just 1 run. Basketball has the 3 pointer. Football has the 2 point conversion, you know, something to help you tie in game in a clutch situation. Baseball needs that. The home run is the most exciting thing about baseball. And why hit the ball to the next zip code only for it to be worth ONE measly run? You would get a lot more flare and cheers if your team were down 2 and you smashed a home run (that’s worth 3 runs) to put you all up 1.

And speaking of Home Runs…

Embrace P(erformance) E(nhancing) D(rug)s. Baseball has been battling with PED’s for the last 20-30 years. Hell just recently the 2015 National League batting champion Dee Gordon (who happens to be a black dude…just saying) was just recently suspended for 80 games because of a positive test. But I say, rather than battling it, embrace it. They are called performance enhancing drugs for a reason. THEY ENHANCE PERFORMANCE. And that’s why we are there, to see enhanced performances. So I wanna see some 150 mph fastballs and home runs hit to the nearest bus station. Who cares if it ain’t human, it’s baseball, and we like that shit. Plus, trying to fight it only makes people want to do it more. Look at Donald Trump…So don’t fight it baseball.

Change some of the names and uniforms of the teams. This one is probably gonna be the toughest sell because you have the iconic uniforms of teams such as the Yankees and Red Sox but you have to. And that’s another thing? WTF is a Yankee? I know that was probably a cool name when you playing against, let’s say, the South Carolina Confederates or something, but come on. Some of these teams need tougher names. Scarier names. Like is basketball you have the Warriors. The Thunder. Everybody has been scared of thunder before. Who the hell is scared of Red Sox? And if that’s not bad enough, they named a team after White Sox! Who was in charge of naming baseball teams and why did they name them after laundry? I am sure we dig back far enough, we will find a team called the Pittsburgh Draws or something…Watch.

Shorten Games. Baseball games are like church…long and boring with an organ playing. Shorten those games up, by say, 3 innings, and I promise more people would watch.

Colorful Cleats. Embrace the shoe movement. Sneaker culture is HUGE. Billion Dollar industry huge. And colorful shoes are all the rage in other sports. Let your players rock em. Also shoe companies need to promote the stars of baseball more with exclusive shoe lines. Could you imagine rocking some Bryce Harper’s? Don’t know who that is? Ok what about rocking some Mike Trout’s? Still don’t know? See what I mean?

Play More Drake…and Future…You start playing more Drake and Future and baseball will cool as shit by tomorrow. Nuff said. The only people who don’t like Drake and Future are Meek Mill and Ciara. Metro Boom…

Let THOTS know that there are guaranteed contracts in baseball. In football, a contract means nothing. Owners can come in at any time and throw it in the trash and cut you and you won’t get paid NOTHING. And THOTS love football players because it is seen as a come up. But baseball has the highest average salary per player AND they have guaranteed contracts, which means that when they sign their name, they will get everything that contract says. Hell, Bobby Bonilla will continue to get paid by the Mets until the mid 2020’s and he hasn’t played baseball since 2001. Yeah THOTS. There’s money in baseball. And the players don’t have to get brain damage to get it.

SEXY CHEERLEADERS. Between innings, teams need sexy cheerleaders to come out like they do during timeouts in basketball. Could you imagine dancers in Miami in July at a baseball game? I’d be there.

There you have it. Do this and Baseball will be cool. The answer is simple. Drake, Sneakers, and THOTS are the key to a cool future. If not, it will get left behind. Soccer is on the come up. Just saying…

NFL DRAFT RECAP

Another NFL Draft is in the books and this one did not disappoint. There was real unscripted drama. It wasn’t just reality TV. It was better…because it wasn’t cheesy and unrealistic. No, this was real life. Young men instantly receive a “Get Out Of Poverty,Free” Card. How could you not like the draft? I loved it. I watched all 3 days of it. (So what I don’t have a life. Stop judging!) There are a few things that really stood out to me. Here are a few of them:

Shout out to the fans. From the start of the draft until the last pick, 3 days, those fans BOO’d Commissioner Roger Goodell. (Side note: Is that how you spell “boo” in the past tense? That looks more like the “poop” boo than “I don’t like Kobe Bryant” boo. Either way, the fans at the draft did BOTH.) They booed him and they kept it up. Loudly. Consistently. They had asthma inhalers so they could keep booing Goodell. They had 2nd string booers ready to come in and substitute in case the first string got tired. It didn’t get to him at first, but by the last day of the draft, Goodell channeled his inner beer drinking alter ego and yelled “ BRING IT ON” to they booing crowd. I loved it. And let’s be real, Goodell is hated more by NFL fans than the Patriots. Don’t get me wrong, NFL fans still hate New England, and a lot. They just hate Goodell more. Its like choosing between getting punched and spit on. You don’t want either, but you will almost always choose the punch. If you get spit on, someone’s blood has to be shed in order for you to get over it. Goodell is like getting spit on.

YOUR Team STILL won’t win the Super Bowl. Hell they probably won’t even make it to playoffs. I know the draft gives fans a lot of hope because your team just drafted that one guy who went to that one school who had those crazy stats and runs a 3.8 40 and he is the piece you need to make that Super Bowl run. WRONG. Unless your team is the Patriots, your team will still be shitty…until next year when you get that one guy from that one school who has those crazy stats. HE is the key piece that you need.

Snitches get…NFL Contracts. Laremy Tunsil is stupid, makes bad decisions, and is a snitch. I have to admit, watching Laremy Tunsil in a free fall on draft night over a video of him smoking weed through a gas mask bong posted to his social media kinda hurt my heart.

Here it is, a kid who was projected to be a top 5 pick plummet, watching his dreams slip and lose tens of millions of dollars all over something that was out of his control, was unfortunate. Or was it in his control? Look, I am very liberal when it comes to prostitution and marijuana. I understand that weed is illegal in many states. But it’s just weed, yo. It’s not like it was a video of him doing, say pain pills that NFL teams freely give to players without a prescription. Oh no. It wasn’t real drugs like that. You know the kind that thousands of people like Prince overdose on. No. It was nothing serious like that. It was just weed. Weed just makes you hungry, goofy, sleepy, and want to share your thoughts on how to teleport to ancient alien civilizations. I ain’t tripping on that. That isn’t what makes me say it’s his fault. It’s the fact that he let someone record it. That’s what make me say that. WHAT IN THE D’ANGELO RUSSELL IS GOING ON WITH THESE NEW AGE ATHLETES? Someone needs to tell them that if a tree falls in the forest and no one is around to hear it, it doesn’t make a sound. Hell it doesn’t even fall because NO ONE SAW IT. He snitched on himself by ever filming it in the first place. Then to add more snitching to injury, after he was drafted by the Dolphins, he was hacked again and someone’s uploaded exchanges between him and an Ole Miss official alleging illegal payments. When asked about it at the draft press conference, HE ADMITTED IT! The reporter was so shocked he asked him again just to make sure he knew what he was saying, HE ADMITTED IT AGAIN! Now Ole Miss, his alma mater, will probably be on probation and his ex coach will probably be fired soon. And what does Tunsil get for his double dose of snitching? Millions of dollars. All I have to say to his Miami Dolphin teammates is, don’t let him bring his cell phone to the locker room…

And speaking of snitching…

It didn’t take long for the THOTS to come out. Ezekiel Elliott, the Dallas Cowboys 1st round pick, is the first player of the 2016 NFL draft to get caught slipping, but he definitely won’t be the last. A young woman posted this pic below…

Look at how he is sleeping. He sleeps ugly and from the way his mouth is open, you know he slobbers. When I saw this I couldn’t help but think of the immortal words of the great negro poet laureate,’Uncle Phil’ from Fresh Prince, “DAY DAMN 1 VIVIAN, DAY DAMN 1!” How do you get caught slipping like this Zeke? Day 1 after you get drafted? But what do you expect from a cat who wears this to the draft?

How do these athletes get caught up like this? Don’t they talk about this at the Rookie Symposium? Most don’t pay attention I guess, and all the better for mediatakeout and THOTS everywhere. SUCKERS!

SOMEONE from this year’s draft will be great. But most will be high school coaches, UPS drivers, or fitness trainers in 3 years. Don’t get me wrong, I want them to win. But the numbers don’t lie. The average NFL career is 3 years. Strippers have a longer career than that and do you know how hard stripping is on the knees?

(THIS IS A STRIPPER KNEE-BRACE)

Yeah, you try walking around in 13 inch heels while getting paper cuts on your cat from a wad of Washingtons. Yeah stripping is tough. And their careers last longer than football players. So it’s not hate. But in the end, it’s always good to see young people’s dreams come true. I wish them luck, lots of money, Super Bowl rings, and groupies galore. And in the fail case of circumstance that is not their destiny, I at least hope that the high school team that they coach wins state.

TK