Major League Baseball

Good times in baseball: Tennessee, Yermín Mercedes and Pablo Sandoval

Updated Jun. 7, 2021 8:19 p.m. ET

By Jake Mintz
FOX Sports MLB Writer

Welcome to Good Times.

Every Monday, we’ll focus on three things from the previous week in baseball — fans, managers, players, teams, cities, fan bases or mascots — for which the times were good.

Let’s get right into it.

1. Knoxville, Tennessee

On Friday, we got one of the greatest, most electric, most goosebump-inducing, 45-second baseball video clips we will ever see. Down 8-5 in the ninth inning against Wright State in the opening game of the Division I College Regionals, the Tennessee Volunteers were staring down the barrel of a devastating upset on their home turf.

But then a few runners got on base, and a now-forever-exalted figure named Drew Gilbert sent the entire stadium into pure, unadulterated bedlam with one of the most no-doubter-y no-doubters to have ever not been doubted. Roll the clip.

Take the best walk-off celebration you've ever seen, and crank that baby up past 11, and that’s what we’ve got right here.

Gilbert would have been well within his rights to go absolutely ballistic the moment he made contact with the baseball. But it’s his momentary portrayal of calmness that takes this celebration to the next level.

The slow strut down the first baseline, while his team is pouring out of the dugout in screaming droves, is *chefs kiss.* He hasn’t even flipped the bat yet when a fellow Volunteer runs onto the field in pure jubilation.

Oh, but when he flips it, he flips it. A star scraper of a heave, tossed so high into the Tennessee night that it must have had a rocket booster attached to it. With his back turned, Gilbert displays not a care in the world as to where his lumber might come down, crashing high from the heavens onto an unsuspecting freshman.

It is the final helmet hurl that gives this delicious bat-flipped sundae its cherry on top. Just when we think all the celebration juice has been squeezed out of the celebration orange, Gilbert gives us one last huzzah to send us home.

The energy in this short video clip has to be enough to power a medium-sized American city for at least a week, if not more. Plays such as this hammer home how American baseball’s old, crotchety, respect-the-game attitude is slowly starting to fade away.

For one early June Friday night, Knoxville became the center of the baseball universe. It’s fans and their unending cheers, the soundtrack to that evening and the next morning, too. And I guess the 30,000 additional times I will watch this video in the next week. It’s that good.

2. Yermín Mercedes

Mr. Mercedes is becoming a regular in my Good Times roundup, which tells you pretty much all you need to know about him. This time, he’s making waves with his new 'do, which literally spells out YERMINATOR on the side of his head.

Our sweet-swinging hero has been on a bit of an unfortunate skid the past few weeks, a schneid that has brought his batting average under .300, with his OPS hovering just above .800. To mix things up and break out of the funk, Mercedes got his nickname shaved into the side of his head, as one does.

It’s worth noting that this is a pretty high-difficulty haircut. If the barber had made any mistakes, any slips of the hand, the lettering could have read YERMITATER or SPERMINATOR or some other typos no one would want buzzed into the side of their head.

And if you’ll let me put on my ‘serious guy hat’ for just a moment, Mercedes getting aggressive with his side-lettuce calligraphy is just another piece of evidence that the fun-loving White Sox are not going to alter their personalities and style of play just because they’ve got the oft-grumpy Tony LaRussa at the helm. Whether he’s dingering 3-0 or going 0-for-30, Yermín is going to have a good time, no matter what.

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3. Pablo Sandoval

One of the five things I remember from the acting class I took in college is that the more props you can have in a scene, the better. The best moments on stage are always surrounded by thousands and thousands of props. Props are good. More props, please.

Props to Pablo Sandoval for the props.

That’s a big panda head, y’all. The Padres' dinger chain is pretty heavy and cumbersome, but this enormous, dress-up Panda head that Sandoval has lying around must be a real bother to keep out of the way.

The 34-year-old Sandoval could have been out of baseball, like, five different times over the past half-decade, but thanks to his power and positive attitude, he has been able to stick around long enough to become a pinch-hit icon for the Atlanta Braves, and he’s clearly appreciative of that.

And I appreciate the Panda.

Jake Mintz is the louder half of @CespedesBBQ and a baseball analyst for FOX Sports. He’s an Orioles fan living in New York City, and thus, he leads a lonely existence most Octobers. If he’s not watching baseball, he’s almost certainly riding his bike. You can follow him on Twitter @Jake_Mintz.