Believe It or Not, There Is Now A ‘Tiger King’-Inspired Minor League Baseball Team (Yes, Really!)

Pardon the rephrasing, but it’s become clear that when it comes to entertainment, quarantine is the mother of invention. From SNL at Home to Josh Gad’s Reunited Apart cast-reunion series, we’re all well acquainted with how we can make content out of conference calls. But the sports world had it tougher, and it’s been a real joy to see how creative some leagues have gotten in an immensely challenging era. 

One of the best, and possibly most under-the-radar, examples of a sports league making lemonade out of coronavirus is baseball’s Constellation Energy League, based out of Sugar Land, TX. The Sugar Land Skeeters have been an Atlantic League expansion team for a decade, but when it was clear that a normal baseball season wouldn’t be possible this year, former Skeeters pitcher Roger Clemens (yes, him) and Skeeters’ president Christopher Hill developed the idea of a temporary, four-team summer league that would run from July 10 to August 30, with all games being played in a socially distanced stadium, Constellation Field, in Sugar Land. Then, crucially, someone in the back office had the brilliant idea to name one of the teams after Joe Exotic. Yes, apparently Tiger King is still a thing, and Freddie Prinze Jr. can move right on over, because he’s the newest summer catch in baseball.

The Constellation League’s four teams consist of the Skeeters, the Sugar Land Lightning Sloths (because sure, why not?), the dry-by-comparison Team Texas, and, gloriously, the Eastern Reyes del Tigre. (Maybe when the name is en español it’s less of a copyright issue?) The league’s games are not available to watch in all markets—in fact, they’re only available if your cable provider has AT&T SportsNet—but allow me to relay the absolute zeitgeistiness of the experience of face-masked athletes wearing uniforms adorned with the visage of a mulleted cartoon tiger, playing to a scantly populated stadium of fans staggered across empty rows that loudly proclaim “KEEP CLEAR FOR SOCIAL DISTANCING.” It’s heartening to see real sports being played again, and the games are genuinely fun to watch in spite of, or because of, all that.

Other sports have taken measures to make games seem normal again, with several professional soccer leagues mixing crowd noise and chants from the EA Sports versions of the game into live broadcasts to simulate, you know, people being there. But we don’t want simulation; we want reality. Real things to bring us normalcy. Like merch. Like this Reyes del Tigre hat that I can see and wear and touch and that will end up in a Goodwill store in 20 years where some 12-year-old will pick it up and be like, “Hey, cool, a vintage Reyes del Tigre baseball cap! Mom, were you alive the first time they won the World Series? I wonder if we can get President Exotic to sign it for us!” Because if 2020 has taught us one thing, it’s that anything is possible.

Liz Kocan is a pop culture writer living in Brooklyn. Her biggest claim to fame is the time she won on the game show Chain Reaction.

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