In a world where your Dad is gearing up to buy an Enes Kanter Freedom jersey despite the fact he’s a free agent, but of course, your Dad wouldn’t know that because he doesn’t watch basketball, and your millennial cousin with six-thousands Ukrainian flags in his Twitter bio retweets Lebron James criticizing a cop for sneezing, important days like Friday can get lost in translation. It’s important that they don’t. Jackie Robinson is a day that should make us all damn proud to be Americans. Seeing guys being dudes slapping each other’s asses, spitting, and wearing #42 is arguably the best tradition in sports. In your life, you’ll overcome adversity where it feels like the entire world will hate you every day, and you’ll go to sleep at night scared, lonely, and defeated. The guy had to do that daily, and he still batted 313. So when AT&T or Raytheon or some other bullshit corporation that lobbies to make laws leaving undisclosed money trails through shell companies tweets about Jackie Robinson day for clout, and you roll your eyes because you know exactly what they’re doing…don’t for a second equate that behavior to Jackie Robinson.
Now onto the news, the Mets lost to the Phillies last night in the most Mets way possible, but that’s not important- the Mets bullpen sending Frank The Tank into Shakespearean Esque despair is par of the course. What IS important about this game is that Phillies third basemen Alec Boehm was caught mouthing “I fucking hate this place” after getting sarcastically cheers for making a routine play because he had three errors at the beginning of the game. Boehm went on to start their eighth-inning rally and, when confronted about the situation, handled it in the best way I’ve ever seen an athlete handle anything. He owned up to it, said he didn’t mean it, and apologized.
Byron Buxton is hitting baseballs like a guy from the 1950s coming home to his family, Hunter Greene throws one million miles an hour (which Reds fans should be excited about), and Jazz Chisiom is a human highlight reel. Noah Syndergaard looked great in his return from Tommy John, as did Justin Verlander, but not as good as his wife doing the Cat Daddy which was the moment I realized I was straight. The Blue Jays are as exciting as we all remember them, ratings for baseball on ESPN haven’t been this high in five years, and Spencer Torkelson got a double on his first hit. The Guardians lineup has been surprisingly incredible? Shohei Ohtani was seen giving his bat CPR because he’s started off the season 3-21…and it might finally be Profar’s year. On to next week.
