More often than is probably healthy, my baseball fan default setting tends to skew old school. It’s partly because I’m a history buff, a bit of an old soul, and let’s face it, a middle aged man who is in the prime “spends five innings complaining about modern players’ tattoos” demographic.
As recently as a few years ago, my response to the news that teams were assembling between-innings dance squads would be somewhere around “siddownandwatchthegame” and “grumble grumble Joe DiMaggio never needed fly girls.”
Which was true since back in his day, fly girls would’ve probably distracted fans from Joltin’ Joe’s latest cigarette ad.
So when I found out that the Mets were adding a new dance team for 2024 called the Queens Crew, my first instinct was to roll my eyes and deploy a devastating fusion of the LOLMets and Steve Buscemi “How do you do, fellow kids” memes.
Get off the sidelines and into the game
Our weekly playbook is packed with everything from locker room chatter to pressing LGBTQ sports issues.
But then I found out that the Queens Crew is co-ed.
For several years now, I’ve been hoping for an active MLB player to come out as gay and dreamed about writing a story celebrating him on this platform.
I’m still waiting for that moment. But if I don’t know when baseball is going to have its Carl Nassib, it’s still legitimately exciting to think that the Mets have opened the door for baseball to have a Jonathan Romero.
Thanks to the Queens Crew, there is now a space in MLB for dancers and artists who might not have felt like they belonged at a baseball game until this year. And for any fans of dance who never gave baseball a chance before seeing a clip of the Mets troupe, what a great way to welcome them to this incredible sport.
Because it turns out that the Queens Crew is quite good and fun to watch.
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Which are precisely the qualities you want at the ballpark. As between innings entertainment goes, this beats the hell out of a T-shirt cannon.
Mets Fans Are Going to Hate This Segue But Sorry Not Sorry
If you were to assemble a dance crew of current MLB players, there’s one guy I’d pick first every single time.
Hint: he’s the one active major league player with the most swing choir experience of anyone in the game.
I could give you 500 chances and you’d probably never guess that I’m talking about…
Kyle Schwarber.
Credit: Mark J. Rebilas-USA TODAY Sports
The Phillies leadoff hitter is the prototype of the “large adult son mashing 47 homers” body type. He’s one of my favorite players of this era and a 2016 Cubs World Series hero.
It turns out that he’s also serving undercover “Glee” realness.
When Schwarber first turned heads in the big leagues in 2015, video from his teenage days surfaced that revealed he was once a member of Middletown High School’s show choir, a group known as The Purple Pizzazz.
Every single word of that sentence is more wonderful than the last.
As this clip of Schwarber tearing it up to “Carol of the Bells” demonstrated, he was totally committed to his performance. There was no fake athlete cockiness or ironic detachment and because of that, watching him was a joy.
Even when confronted with it as a big league star, Schwarber remained proud, telling MLB.com, “Yeah, I got an A. Did you see the video?!”
If we can turn Chris Colfer’s “Rose’s Turn” an internet sensation in 2024, it’s time for baseball TikTok to make Schwarber’s rendition of “Mr. Santa” go viral once again.
Just like when he annihilated a baseball onto the Wrigley Field Jumbotron, everything’s coming up Schwarbs.
MLB Thirst Trap of the Week
We’ve already written multiple tributes to Dodgers fan favorite Kiké Hernández showing off his 80-grade “Bend and Snap” skills from “Legally Blonde.” So we knew going into this year that he’s comfortable publicly embracing films beloved by the LGBTQ community.
Then for Opening Day, he captivated us all over again by showing up to Dodger Stadium wearing this…
Credit: MLB Photo
As a super utility player, Hernández’s jobs are left field, second base, right field, third base, shortstop, and beach.
