Baseball Is Fun This Year, Are You Watching?

…He and Boston beer giant Sam Adams partnered on a merch drop. But we buried the lede because the real story is that DWhite slid down that one slide the cop flew out of. The photo reads: “Cop the Collab.” Thank you, internet.  

BREAKING: Kawhi Leonard smiled. Really big. At a Padres game. We’re just as surprised as you. We reached out to his team for comment, but they just stared blankly at us.

If you aren’t the running kind, maybe you’d prefer a racket club. These nine clubs have become communities in their respective cities. Go on then, hit a ball around with some homies.    

Esquire put out its Mavericks of Sports list with eight profiles on their sports gamechangers. Not to rattle off nine full names, but Caleb Williams, Naomi Girma, Nate Burleson, Megan Rapinoe, Sue Bird, Donovan Mitchell, Lindsey Vonn, and Paul Skenes are all featured. Feast your eyes.

You need to read our third-cousin-twice-removed newsletter, SportsVerse, from this week. Daniel-Yaw Miller gives you behind-the-scenes looks at the draftees’ beauty processes and partnerships.

We’ve talked a bit about how baseball is turning a corner in terms of no longer being stuffy. Between the Tokyo Series, the whimsy of the MiLB teams, torpedo bats, and power couples like Livvy and Paul, it’s officially a fun league. 

So which players are the funnest of the fun? Who should you be following that you aren’t—be it on social or on TV, during games (please, just don’t physically follow them; let the record show we are not encouraging that).  

If you need something to watch 100 times on a loop, here’s this. Yankees’ Luke Weaver will win you over in the first 5 seconds. As the video says, he is so baby girl. 

@yankees

Very demure, very mindful 😌 #yankees #mlb #baseball #postseason #lukeweaver #demure

Cincinnati’s Elly De La Cruz is also a must-watch. For one, he’ll hit a grand slam on his own bobblehead night, but he has a knack for comedic timing—even in-game while making an out. His teammate, Hunter Greene says he’s the best pitcher in the game, and we have no reason not to believe him. Together, the two are unstoppable. 

Speaking of Elly, Yankees first baseman Ben Rice surprised him a time or two because he is randomly very, very good at Spanish. Also, he says he eats anything with “arroz.” He is so rice for that. 

The Orioles’ Adley Rutschman is a slugger, no doubt, but more importantly, in our OffBall-er opinion, he’s a talented actor and pranksman. He went undercover at the MLB store in NYC and pretended to work there. 

For the dancing queens, there’s LA Dodger Kiké Hernández. He has whole fancams dedicated to his moves.

Tristan Casas is introducing one of our most agro metropolitan cities to the benefits of yoga and the absorption of energy through sunlight. If you’re looking for a wellness girlie, look no further. 

If you like ‘em flashy, look no further than Fernando Tatis Jr. of the San Diego Padres. He’s usually under fire for something (you know, like doing a bat flip or the suck it sign), but that’s part of the charm. Plus, how many players can steal second and go straight into a full split?

Formerly seen as an exclusive Euro sport, Formula 1 has reinvented herself (what? She can’t be a woman?). At the heart of this transformation are the drivers, obviously, because they’re content machines. And thanks to F1 TikTok, Netflix, and the aforementioned drivers, more eyes are on the sport than ever.  

Everyone knows Lewis Hamilton. If you don’t, we can’t help you. In his latest venture, he’s looking to nab Ws on the track, but he’s also on track to get a W as Met Gala co-chair. He wrote a piece for Vogue, wherein he mentioned that this year’s theme—Superfine: Tailoring Black Style—is one that feels significant because of his own personal trajectory in a sport dominated by people who don’t look like him.

Much of the hullabaloo around F1 right now is thanks to Hamilton, but it’s also thanks to the sport’s prominence on TikTok. Think of it as the new NBA Twitter for our very online readers. Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri of team McLaren are crushing it on social and meeting all their social teams’ OKRs and KPIS and TMIs and OMGs and whatnot (just a guess—we haven’t seen the numbers). 

And another crowd fave is Yuki Tsunoda, who we talk about any chance we can get. But when he was promoted to Red Bull and Liam Lawson was demoted, fans turned the harrowing moment into something they could root for. That’s the power of content, people!

Mercedes reserve driver Valterri Bottas is a fun follow if you love a wry, dry guy. 

Actually, Ferrari is the only team not going kinda HAM on TikTok, but the oldest team in the game, with much esteem and regard, need not worry itself with advancements in the digital age. But wait, change may be a-comin’ there, too, because just last month, Lewis launched a personal TikTok. Hold onto your helmet, Mr. Ferrari! 

Maybe that’s how you know your sport has made it. When there’s a social media ecosystem carved out for you, when one of your athletes is involved in the Met Gala, and Saudi Arabia wants to play.