🚨 What’s Inside This Week:

• 🔥First Pitch

• The Good, Bad, Ugly

• 🏎️Baseball On The Speedway

• ⚾️Against All Odds – Those Rays

• 🧵The Ambidextrous Ace

•  🧢Million Dollar Arm-John Deere Dreams.

• 🐘One for the Road

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Damn, It’s Good to Be Bobby Bonilla

July 1st came and went… and Bobby Bonilla got paid. Again.

$1.19 million, deposited into his account—every July 1st since 2011. The kicker? Bonilla hasn’t swung a bat in nearly 25 years.

It’s called Bobby Bonilla Day, and it’s baseball’s most bizarre payday tradition.

Here’s the backstory: In 2000, the New York Mets owed Bonilla $5.9 million. Instead of paying him outright, they deferred the money—with interest—betting big on Bernie Madoff’s “guaranteed” returns.

We all know how that turned out.

Now those Amazing Mets are on the hook for annual payments of $1.19 million through 2035. Total payout? Nearly $29 million.

And it gets better (for Bobby). The Baltimore Orioles also owe Bonilla $500K per year through 2028 thanks to another deferred deal.

Bonilla is raking it in like a Hall of Fame hedge fund manager.

Happy Bobby Bonilla Day, indeed.

Now, let’s dive into this week’s Good, Bad, and Ugly…

💪 THE GOOD – Wilyer Abreu, Red Sox

Red Sox Nation hasn’t had much to cheer about since shipping off Rafael Devers. But Monday night, Wilyer Abreu gave ‘em a reason to roar.

First, an inside-the-park home run in the 5th—Fenway’s first since 2011. Then in the 8th? A grand slam.

Speed. Power. Fireworks.

How rare is that combo? It hadn’t been done in 66 years—not since Roger Maris pulled it off in 1958.

Abreu’s night was more than electric.
It was historic.
Mic drop.

😓 THE BAD – The Fan That Interferes

Home cooking at its finest.

Monday night in Arizona, the Giants thought they’d tied it—Christian Koss launched one to left-center. A home run, or so they thought.

But an overzealous Diamondbacks fan reached over the wall and caught it mid-flight. Umpires ruled it a ground-rule double. Fan interference. No homer.

Instead of 3–3, it stayed 3–2. Arizona held on to win, 4–2.

And the fan? That wasn’t just some random glove-happy tourist. Nope—turns out Dave McCaskill has a history with fly balls at Chase Field. A long history.

Call it home field advantage… with a glove assist.

By Tuesday, the D-backs had seen enough—banning Super-Fan Dave for the rest of the season.

Tough punishment? Maybe.

But hey… see you in April, Dave.

😭 THE UGLY – Mets Get Throttled

Alright, alright… we swear we’re not piling on the Mets.

Let’s rewind to last weekend in Pittsburgh.

The Pirates—dead last in runs scored—hosted the Mets. By Sunday, they had outscored New York 30–4 in a three-game sweep.

Yes, 30 to 4. From Pittsburgh.

Juan Soto, New York’s $765 million man? 1-for-12.
Mets pitching? Basically batting practice in disguise.

The Pirates don’t usually score 30 runs in a month.
This wasn’t just ugly.
It was Mets-level ugly.

🏎️ Baseball Hits the Speedway

Drivers, start your engines!
Okay, not quite. But mark your calendars.

On August 2, the Cincinnati Reds and Atlanta Braves will play at a place no one saw coming—Bristol Motor Speedway, NASCAR’s 146,000-seat monster known as The Last Great Colosseum.

They’re calling it the MLB Speedway Classic.

To make it happen, crews are laying down 17,500 tons of gravel, 340 tons of Pennsylvania clay, and 124,000 square feet of synthetic turf.

If a pit crew designed a baseball stadium, this would be it.

Field of Dreams?
Try Field of Horsepower.

Oh—and did we mention Tim McGraw, Pitbull, and Jake Owen are performing? Plus a Ferris wheel, a massive fan zone, and food trucks.

The crack of the bat meets the roar of the engine.

⚾️Against All Odds – Those Rays

Let’s give it up for baseball’s scrappiest miracle: the Tampa Bay Rays.

How are they still doing this?

In the bloodbath that is the AL East, the Rays are toe-to-toe with the Yankees and Blue Jays—with barely a third of the payroll.

Payroll? $88 million.
Yankees? Nearly $300 million.

And they’re not even playing in a real stadium.

After Hurricane Milton wrecked Tropicana Field in 2024, the Rays have been exiled to George M. Steinbrenner Field—a spring training park that seats 11,000 and feels like a temporary fix because it is one.

They lost their franchise star, Wander Franco—gone for good after a conviction that left a black mark on the organization.

Ownership? In limbo—and trying to sell.

It’s a mess. But somehow, the Rays just keep showing up—and winning.

No team in baseball has ever done more with less.

Here’s hoping a new owner gives them what they’ve never had: a real stadium, real support, and the respect they’ve earned ten times over.

The Rays aren’t just surviving.

They’re doing the impossible.

🧵 For Jurrangelo Cijntje — Two Arms Are Better Than One

Shohei Ohtani? Unicorn.
Cijntje? Double trouble in cleats.

Meet Jurrangelo Cijntje—the 22-year-old switch pitcher from Curaçao, set to light up next week’s Futures Game in Atlanta.

Not a typo.
Switch pitcher. As in:

👉 Right-handed: 99 mph gas
👉 Left-handed: Filthy sweeping slider

He wears a custom six-finger glove, letting him seamlessly flip arms mid-inning like it’s no big deal.

Image facing, Paul Skenes and Chris Sale in the same inning. One guy. Two arms. No mercy.

This isn’t a circus act.
It’s not a TikTok trick.
It’s the future of pitching—coming at you from both sides.

Only six switch pitchers have ever made The Show.
None had this kind of stuff at 22

Just vibes and velocity.
Keep your eyes peeled.

🚜 Paul Skenes: Grass Whisperer

Paul Skenes is one of the most-watched players in baseball. Whether it’s that 100 mph fastball or red carpet moments with his stunning girlfriend, the cameras always find him.

But this week? No spotlight. No mound. Just Skenes on the field, hours before game time… chatting it up with the PNC Park grounds crew.

He spent nearly 20 minutes talking turf. Blade height. Mower brands. OK—we’re guessing. But he looked right at home.

When asked, he said he was just bored. Then casually mentioned he’d love to cut grass professionally once his playing days are over.

Skenes the groundskeeper? Don’t tempt him.

I could see him mowing patterns in center field.
Lining chalk with military precision.
Cracking a cold one after a clean infield cut.

Why wait, Paul?
One day you’re lighting up the radar gun…
The next, you're perfecting the outfield fade.
Call it the Skenes Two-Way.

Million dollar arm. $40 landscaping gloves. No notes.

Dominator of hitters. Destroyer of crabgrass.

🌕 Meet the Moon Mammoths

Back in May, John Oliver threw down the gauntlet to Minor League Baseball:

“Want a makeover? We’ll do it. No questions asked.”

Over 40 teams raised their hands.
He picked one: the Erie SeaWolves.

So began the rebrand.

🎉 Introducing the Moon Mammoths: a purple, moonwalking, astronaut-helmet-wearing prehistoric beast named Fuzz E. Mammoth—dreamed up by Last Week Tonight.

The backstory? In 1991, scuba diver George Moon surfaced from Lake Pleasant in Erie, PA holding a strange bone. Turns out, it belonged to a 12,000-year-old mammoth. That fossil is now Erie’s mascot.

Oliver called the experience, “about as happy as I get as a human being.”

The Mammoths make their debut July 19. Oliver will be there. George Moon has been invited.

Because only in baseball can a long-lost fossil become a moon-booted mascot 12 millennia later.

📍 Erie: now proudly serving pepperoni balls and prehistoric branding.

Thats all for this week. Enjoy the Weekend!

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