That’s the new MLB “We Play for October” commercial, the league’s first promotional spot for the playoffs that begins airing today.
Clips of three Dodgers players are featured: Clayton Kershaw, Yasiel Puig and Hanley Ramirez. Makes sense considering the Dodgers enter their three-game series in Cincinnati with a less than one percent chance of missing the playoffs.
While the Dodgers continue taking things one game at a time, it was interesting to see the league’s marketing department counting its chickens. Ten teams make the playoffs, and ten teams had clips in this ad: The Dodgers, Pirates, Braves, Rangers, Tigers and Red Sox — the six division leaders — plus the Cardinals, Reds, A’s and Rays.
Left on the chopping block were a couple of realistic American League playoff hopefuls, the Yankees and Orioles, plus the National League longshots in Arizona and Washington. The message: Next time, just play for September — when the ads come out.
A few bullet points for a Swaziland Independence Day:
• Bonus if you recognized the name of the song featured in the ad. “My Songs Know What You Did In the Dark” by Fallout Boy.
• Speaking of Ryan Braun: He isn’t in the ad, but he is calling Milwaukee Brewers season ticket holders to apologize.
• Julio Urias‘ rookie season in a nutshell.
• Enough major league general managers seem to dislike one major rule just enough that it might get changed some day.
• The Dodgers knew they were excluding non-local fans from their #MeetMagic Twitter ticket giveaway contest. RantSports.com rants about this.
• In the same vein, if the Dodgers ever hold a “Best Man Cave” or “Best Fan Cave” contest, the winner might live on the Jersey shore.
• Jamiroquai’s man cave in the “Space Cowboy” video wouldn’t win, yet has a cool modern minimalist thing going: