Playa’s Weekend Extravaganza

Bill August 11, 2017 2 Comments

If you hadn’t heard, MLB has decreed that the weekend of August 25th-27th is Player’s Weekend. The background behind this is to allow the players to express themselves as well as to connect with their past in Little League and other youth baseball pursuits. So what does all this mean in practice? Here’s the basics:

1. Alternate jerseys that inspired by youth league designs
2. Nicknames on jerseys instead of last names (or no names as on Yankee jerseys).
3. More customized equipment like batting gloves, bats, and the like.
4. A customized “evolution” patch with a shoutout to youth baseball.
5. Supporting of the player’s charity before and after the game (plus jerseys and equipment will be auctioned off to support MLBs youth charity)

So first off, all that sounds really good at a high level. And before I share all my thoughts, just know that overall I am for this. Baseball has typically felt like the “stick in the mud” or “crotchety old neighbor” of the major sports in a lot of ways, so this type of thing goes a long way. But that said, I do have my opinions.

If Mississippi Wore a New Jersey What Did Delaware?

I am not down with the jerseys. I think I would be in general, but there are two things that kill this part of the idea for me. First, there are so many alternate jerseys now for Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, Fourth of July weekend, Military Appreciation, throwbacks (which I love), and probably others I’ve lost track of. All of that on top of just the alternate jersey. I think there’s just a bit of overkill on that front for me. Maybe if there weren’t so many that would help.

Second, and probably the biggest reason, is that I am just simply not a fan of these jerseys. I would compare them to the “color rush” stuff they do in the NFL. These things are very bright and flashy. I feel like they are more like warm-up or Spring Training jerseys. I like some of them a little, but in general it’s just not my thing. But I would bet money that the kids that live down the street from me will LOVE these things. It’s kind of what they wear all the time when I see them walking to school.

Some Special Yankees / Mets Attitude…

One of the big things I’ve heard and seen on some social media is that Yankees fans don’t like the names on the back because of the tradition of Yankee jersey’s not having names. Get over it! These are alternate jerseys so they aren’t traditional anyway. You see people wearing non-authentic jerseys and sherzees all the time with the players names on there. I like the tradition of baseball a lot, but I think we can live with something outside the box for a few days out of the year.

I’m sure some of that attitude comes from being a Mets fan, but I just don’t get that side of it. Complain about the style or the weekend itself all you want, but it’s not like the Yankees will be exempt from it. I don’t know if other teams that don’t put their names on the back have this issue. I just happen to have some NY stuff come up on my feeds.

Now that I got the old man attitude out of me…

Nicknames!!!

I love this idea. It’s not original (think back to the XFL or what the NBA did more recently), but I love letting the players express themselves like this. The players let the MLB know enough ahead of time that you can go get the jerseys if you are interested. There’s some obvious ones that are a bit tired, but still cool like Thor, Joey Bats, All Rise…, I hope you can guess who those all belong to. Here are few I saw that I really liked:

• Corey’s Brother – Kyle Seager
• Carl’s Jr. – Carl Edwards, Jr.
• Toddfather – Todd Frazier
• Sang Nam Ja – Eric Thames (apparently it translates to Badass)
• PTBNL – Josh Phegley (Player to be Named Later)

Some players did opt out of the nicknames though (Corey Seager and Brett Gardner for example). Plus MLB had the right to nix anything bad.

My Nicknames for the Muts, er Mets

One of the reasons I love this is that my brother and I love giving nicknames to our guys. These are my suggestions (some of them are already used by many) for our Mets:

• Yoenis Cespedes – Yo Yo (It’s nice to say, “Yo Yo with the Ho Ho”)
• Michael Conforto – MC Hammer, Kid Conforto (both of which we might have gotten from Jim Breuer I think)
• Wilmer Flores – Willy Flowers
• Neil Walker – Texas Ranger, Walk This Way
• Matt Reynolds – Kevin Mc (as in Matt “Kevin Mc”Reyonlds)
• TJ Rivera – Te Jota (pronouncing T and J in Spanish)
• Curtis Granderson – The Grandyman, Grandy
• Zach Wheeler – Wheels
• Jacob DeGrom – DeGrominator
• Asdrubal Cabrera – AC Slater, Cabby
• Juan Lagares – Juan Love, Love the Juan You’re With
• Jerry Blevins – Jerrah (you say it in a Jerry Jones style accent)
• Chris Flexen – Funkmaster Flexen
• Travis d’Arnaud – Dino
• Brandon Nimmo – Finding Nimmo
• Seth Lugo – Loogee
• Robert Gsellman – Bobby G
• David Wright – The Captain

Half those can’t even fit on a jersey. And I’m not even going to mention the nicknames we use when things aren’t going well.

We Are, We Are, the Youth of the Nation

I think most of all I really like the evolution logo and the tie back to youth baseball. The logo is an awesome idea and I’m glad its on all the branding for this because it really ties things back. Now its a bit more busy than the old school design and it’s got this reverse feel to the evolution with the way the swing is, and maybe that’s the idea, but I think it’s really cool.

This will all fit in nicely with the Little League World Series and all that. And how could you not like anything that supports a charity. I think this is one of the best ways to allow players to express themselves. What cause do they support? Honestly this might make me start liking a player over another when I learn this stuff.

Not that I didn’t like him before, but I have grown to love Curtis Granderson for all the things he does for kids with his GrandKids charity (which just had it’s 10 year gala). Anything that gets you more tied into the players can’t be bad.

If you want some other places to read about it, try these:

• ESPN / UniWatch (Paul Lukas is a great follow on social media and I love the UniWatch site)
• Deadspin

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