Michi's Summer Sports Alternatives for 2025
Cut the cable? MLB and the regional sports network and broadcast retransmission consent fees have nothing on great fringe sports content available at little to no charge, all summer long.
Welcome to the summer season. In America, this is the time that is associated with the national pastime. Here in Riverton, we are officially in two MLB markets, the 19-36 Baltimore Orioles, currently 16 games deep in the cellar of the AL East and the 26-40 Washington Nationals, currently riding near the rear, 10 games behind in the NL East. Myself, because of my southern California upbringing, I have always had an affinity for the Los Angeles Dodgers, currently leading the NL West, two games ahead of the San Diego Padres.
For me, as a cord cutter, my ability to watch any MLB games is severely limited. The massive fees that are tacked on to cable and satellite bills for two regional sports networks (RSN) as well as the retransmission fees for local broadcast stations make the choices limited, or in my case, since I am a fan of an out-of-market team, paying $140 for a season of MLB.TV is just simply not worth it, especially if I am still going to be denied seeing the Dodgers play the Nationals. With that, I will limit my baseball appetite to MLB condensed games and Jomboy breakdowns for free on YouTube.
MLB baseball is not the only game in town this time of the year. With some creative searching, you can find yourself some interesting things to watch at little or no cost. Here are some of the places where the Michi’s will be tuned on this season.
Banana Ball
Banana Ball is baseball, but with a twist. It’s a more lively atmosphere with players who do trick plays, such as catching a fly ball behind their back or while in the middle of a back flip. Even catching the ball with their cap, something taboo in the bigs, is allowed. Fans are engaged throughout the game as they are able to catch foul balls for outs and have the ability to challenge calls on the field. What does not exist are the massive salaries, the negative player drama, the arguments with umps and fights between players.
This year, there are four regular teams in the franchise: the Savannah Bananas, the Party Animals, the Firefighters and the Texas Tailgaters. In the past, baseball purists have equated the Bananas to the Harlem Globetrotters and the Party Animals with the Washington Generals. Anything can be further from the truth. Even though both teams do trick plays and the latest TikTok dance numbers, the game itself is purely real and athletic. Actually, this year (like last year), the Party Animals is a better team on the field. Imagine going to watch the Globetrottters and seeing the Generals win more than half of the games. The truth be told, in Banana Ball, the entertainment may be planned, but the game and the outcomes are purely based on ability.
All of the Banana Ball games are being streamed for free on YouTube. A select number of games are also being carried live on the ESPN networks. Jesse Cole, the founder of the league keeps breaking the societal norms of the original game to try new things. Last year, it was playing in MLB stadiums attracting sell out crowds. This year, several football stadiums have been added to the mix, including a game played at football stadium of Clemson University that had an attendance of over 81,000 fans. A 50-foot net was set up in right field in order to compensate for the field dimensions and yes, there was a very deep left. It was a fun game to watch.
Also too, as Banana Ball can do their own thing, there are surprises that always take place in the games, such as who may come up to the plate or to the mound. This may include legendary past MLB players or even this very emotional moment that took place this past Memorial Day:
Tickets to games are hard to get, as there was a very high demand and a lottery system is used to determine who gets tickets. The league also has a fan club (K Club) that die-hard banana-fans can join and get priority to tickets. This year, I will be attending the Bananas v. Firefighters game, June 27 at Nationals Park in DC.
Major League Cricket
Its the sport that most Americans either don’t know about or they just simply misunderstand. Cricket is truly a global sport, second only to football/soccer. Many people may associate the game with the “test match” format where games are played over several days. Major League Cricket is different. They play a format called “T-20”. This format only involves games that take about three hours to play and can be easily watched on television, similar to most other sports. Cricket in the United States is fairly a new thing in modern times, especially with the influence of the Indian diaspora in our country. The game is fairly easy to learn and the T-20 format, which is more of a hitting game is more exciting to watch compared to the longer formats. MLC has six teams: the Los Angeles Knight Riders, MI New York, San Francisco Unicorns, Seattle Orcas, Texas Super Kings and the Washington Freedom. Some of the team names are inspired by the Indian Premier League, who’s teams have a significant ownership interest in the American teams.
MLC games will be played this year at the dedicated cricket facility in Grand Prairie, Texas, Broward County Stadium in Florida and even the Oakland Coliseum, former home of the Oakland A’s. Games are played in a round robin format with the top four teams playing in a four game championship series.
Live and archived MLC games are carried on Willow TV, which is available through some cable/satellite providers or available directly for only 9.99 per month at the Willow TV website. Willow TV can be seen on various OTT devices, such as Roku. MLC’s 2025 season includes 34 matches that run from June 12 through July 13. Since Willow TV has a month-to-month option, you only need to pay about $20 for a whole season of cricket.
If you are not ready to take the plunge and pay to watch games, you watch cricket matches from around the world for free on Willow Sports, their FAST1 channel.
Oh yea, I forgot. There will be T-20 cricket at the 2028 Summer Olympic Games in Los Angeles.
The Warehouse Games: Ball In Play League
Now, let’s take both baseball and cricket and mash those elements into a totally different game and play it indoors in a warehouse.
Jomboy Media is a NYC-based content provider that is well known for its baseball coverage including breakdowns that involve founder Jimmy O’Brien’s uncanny ability to do lip-reading. The popularity of Jomboy has grown over time, even to the point where Jimmy found himself doing a cameo on a recent episode of The Simpsons.
Ball in Play is one of several disciplines in The Warehouse Games franchise at Jomboy Media. This is in addition to other sports that have been created or adapted by JM, including Blitzball Battle, Slap Ball and Floor Ball. All played from a warehouse in New Jersey.
This will be the third Ball in Play league series from the warehouse. The game’s ruleset has evolved from something closer to the original root sports (baseball and cricket) to more of its own thing. Ball in Play League 3 is taking place right now with all games available on YouTube.
Jomboy Media produces warehouse content throughout the year and even has launched a new effort called Warehouse Challenges, where they do some interesting things in the warehouse. I would really love to see them do a collaboration with another YouTube channel I enjoy, How Ridiculous.
Reruns of RollerGames
Growing up in Los Angeles, I remember watching the roller derby on TV in the 1970s and early 1980s. It was a game that was played on a banked track and had many of the antics of professional wrestling, such as fixed outcomes, choreographed moves and petty violence. The original game was created by Leo Seltzer in the 1935 in the form of a race, the Transcontinental Roller Derby. This was during a time when dance marathons were a thing. This would go for about two years before Leo morphed the race into a full contact sport. In the 1950s, Leo’s son, Jerry Seltzer would revive the sport into the spectacle that it became giving pro wrestling a run for its money on early TV and live shows.
In the late 70s, when I was more coherent about things happening on TV, I discovered the Los Angeles T-Birds and used to watch the games. The format was alternating periods alternating between men and women. The game had the pro wrestling style side show antics, including characters like “Mizz” Georgia Hase. Like pro wrestling, it was a battle between the good guys and the bad guys.
In 1989, the game was once again revived for television as RollerGames. Producer David Sams would take the original game, which involved a simple banked track oval and made some “enhancements”, such as the “wall of death” and an alligator pit. Yes, alligators. The show was everything wrong with the 80s including permed hair, glam rock and horrible Chyron graphics.
The show even included appearances by Orange County conservative talk show host Wally George, who had has own smash-TV series called “Hot Seat” that aired on KDOC-TV in Anaheim, that Rick Dees used to call “the snow channel” as it had a weak signal in the LA basin because it was one of the few LA TV stations at the time that was not on Mount Wilson.
Keep in mind, this was during a trend many called “crash TV” where WWF (before they became known as WWE) and many of the competing wrestling franchises were flourishing and American Gladiators was also very popular. The show was syndicated and only ran for one season. Plus, Sams made a great choice in casting Wally George. He fit perfectly in RollerGames, especially taking on people at the level of Ms. Georgia Hase.
During the late 2000s, I discovered the sport of modern roller derby, which was played on a flat track. Modern roller derby started as an amateur sport, first played solely by women and had a punk rock atmosphere. The first modern games were brutal with very limited rules. The game would eventually evolve and Arizona Roller Derby (AZRD) would eventually split off into different franchises including the Renegade Rollergirls that played a true “no rules” game and the Arizona Derby Dames (AZDD), which at first had a lot of the on-track antics similar to that original Arizona game (called a “bout”), while the original AZRD would evolve into a more structured game with more rules. This structured game would eventually spread worldwide and is still being played today under a governing body called the Women’s Flat Track Derby Association.
During that time, I became involved in the sport, not as a skater, but from a journalistic perspective. I had created a bunch of YouTube content at the time highlighting the different Arizona derby leagues using the personna “Michi-chan”, hence the first widespread use of my nickname “Michi” for which I am known to this day. Being a journalist, I had a lot of inside access to these local derby leagues as well as insight on everything rollersports going on at the time.
I would eventually build relationships and connections with many people involved in the modern and the classic sport including Jerry Seltzer. On my first trip to Japan, I met Hiroshi Koizumi, a legendary roller derby skater from Japan as part of the Tokyo Bombers. Through those channels, I got word that David Sams was trying to revive RollerGames and I had been doing a little bit behind the scenes to try to get involved with the revival in some way or another. I did a story on the potential revival of RollerGames on a 2008 episode of The Arizona Derby Report.
In 2020, the 1989 RollerGames series would eventually come back to TV, remastered in widescreen glory on Fox Sports 1. Little did I know (and four years after the fact) until it came up on my YouTube algorithm a few days ago, all of the 1989 RollerGames episodes were posted. All of the crazy antics of the World Alliance of Rollersports (WAR), including the T-Birds, the Rockers, the Violators, Mizz Georgia Hase, Wally George, the gators and a retrospect that us Gen-Xers as well as boomers will equate with “everything wrong with the 80s”. If you are brave enough (and have a paper bag handy, just not a classic Ladmo Bag), indulge into what was RollerGames.
So there you go. If you are sick of the insanity of the big professional sports in North America (not as much the NHL, which is the sanest of the “big four”) and want to save those RSN and retrans fees, I have given you some great things to watch this season. Enjoy the fun. Sports and entertainment do mix. It’s all worth a watch.
FAST is a broadcast industry acronym for “free ad supported television”.
Heck, there's still the game of the week on Fox. I'm a Brewers fan. And I’m a Braves fan due to their association with Milwaukee. But more than anything these days, I'm simply a fan of the game. Saturday night Baseball on Fox works. Much to my chagrin. But I am glad to see they still offer. It’s the only good thing that network does. And I always make sure to pay little to no attention to the commentators.
I miss Vin Scully and Uecker. But especially Phil Rizzuto. If the game was in hand, Scooter usually bailed so he could beat traffic and head home to Mrs. He was a Prince.