Shorts Reviews: Sports Friends : Baseball

Sports Friends is yet another series recently cranked out by Yahoo! It features animated spoofs of pairs of famous athletes talking to one another. I was actually writing my review of The Fuzz (another Yahoo! show) when I spotted that Sports Friends has an episode with Derek Jeter and Brett Gardner of the Yankees in it. Given my short attention span, and the fact that I had the Yankees game on in the background, I took a break to check out this new series.

At first I was like, “this blows.” The animation is done in cheap-looking flash (though the faces are quite detailed & accurate) and even the show’s own disclaimer cautions: “All characters and events in this cartoon, even those based on real people, are entirely fictitious and all voices are obviously impersonated.” Very obviously. (Wait. Can you get more obvious than obvious? Ah, screw it, I’m leaving it in.)

Even listening to the first minute-and-a-half, I was thinking: “This is lame; two professional baseball players don’t know what a slider is? Derek Jeter didn’t know you could steal bases? Come on now, this isn’t even creative.” And I stand by that. But then the duo start rattling off other things they didn’t know about baseball. Like Gardy used to think Jackie Robinson was a girl. Or Jeter used to believe the Philly Phanatic was based on a real animal. So did Gardner, right up until the moment Jeter said he wasn’t.

And I found myself laughing.

Gardner then added that he used to think the design of the baseball was based on Mr. Met, who was a guy with a disease that owned the Mets. Hilarious! And I lost it when they both said no one knows everything, well, except for two people: (said simultaneously) “Jesus, and the President.”

Well damn. How do I know if it’s truly funny or not? There’s three more baseball ones, maybe I should check those out.

(nine minutes later)

Alright, so the Red Sox (Jacoby Ellsbury and Dustin Pedroia) one was decently funny. The Milwaukee Brewer (Prince Fielder and Ryan Braun McSteroid) episode was good, if only for the “Liar, liar, Michael Cuddyer” line. The “First Base” one with Jayson Werth, Joey Votto, and Brandon Phillips was pretty decent as well, mostly because of the gags involving all three players.

Overall, this series isn’t half bad. It’s may not be the funniest thing since sliced bread (wait, is that the expression?) but it’s worth a few chuckles. The writers clearly know their sports and their athletes, and it makes for some humorous scenarios. If you’ve got three minutes to spare, check one out.

 

I’ll be back next week with a review of the football episodes.

 

 

FOOTBALL!

 

 

 

@Gonzo_Green