There was plenty of bad blood the last time the Toronto Blue Jays and the Kansas City Royals played each other this past August.
So with the two teams set to resume their rivalry in game one of the ALCS Friday night, fans of both teams have come together to create a funny and unique “rap battle” pitting the Jays against the Royals.
The song is a true collaboration between Joshua Kennedy of Springfield, Missouri, (who brings it on behalf of the Royals) and Jon Corbin of Milton, Ontario (who’s reppin’ the Jays).
“You gotta be jokin’ think you’re winning with Stroman? He’s a flash in the pan, just a bump in the path, on the road to our dynasty and something that lasts,” Kennedy opens one exchange.
“First place the whole year, unless I’m flunkin in math. Your team was only good for like a month and a half!”
“While you spent that time with your foot off the gas, now everyone wonders if your moment has passed,” Corbin fires back.
“Here’s another truth: no way you can scare us – even though we ducking fastballs from Herrera.”
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While it may sound aggressive, the tongue-in-cheek song is a true labour of love between two baseball fans and aspiring hip hop artists who have worked together in the past.
“Josh and I are both teachers, and we connected on Twitter and various hip hop forums,” Corbin told Global News from his home in Milton, Ontario. “We’ve continued to dialog over the years about music, how our families are doing – but also about baseball.”
“I told Jon that they probably wouldn’t play in the first round because they both appeared set to win their divisions, but that I would be happy to do the battle with him if the teams ended up playing in the ALCS,” Kennedy told Global News.
Even though they live hundreds of miles apart, the song was completed less than 24 hours after the Jays and Royals wrapped up their respective series’ Wednesday.
After plotting out the basic beat, Corbin said he and Kennedy wrote the song’s lyrics over the course of a few hours in a Google documents spreadsheet.
“The fun thing about shared Google documents is that we could see what the other person was writing,” Corbin said. “It was a real rapid back-and-forth process.”
“The Google doc collaboration was actually extremely easy,” Kennedy said. “We were able to feed off each other that way, and it was much more convenient than emailing every idea back and forth.”
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Corbin, a teacher at Gary Allan High School in Burlington, Ontario, has been involved in music and production since 2001.
Kennedy has likewise produced and distributed his own music online since 2012. The two previously collaborated on another humorous rap, this one about the trials and tribulations of being a teacher.
The top two teams in the American League are set to open the best-of-seven series in Kansas City Friday night in what is expected to be an intense, emotional ALCS.
Both teams reached a boiling point the last time they faced each other in early August during a four-game series in Toronto.
Kennedy however was a bit more succinct.
“Listen to the song for my prediction.”
-With files from the Associated Press
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