Spaceballs the flamethrower!

Actually, I am sure. It became apparent during the postgame interview with Flores, when Postgame Live anchor Laura Britt asked him about Adames’ energy in being the first one out of the dugout. Flores offered a courteous but intriguing answer, one that hinted at the contrast between the old school and the new.

“A lot of energy,” Flores said. “A lot of people know my style, how I play the game, and I’m really jealous of the way he plays the game. He’s always having fun and, it doesn’t matter the situation, he’s always going to bring a smile, and that’s good for our team.”

How Flores plays the game has been demonstrated on each of the four home run trots he’s taken during the past week. Flores does it the way it should be done, running hard out of the box until the ball clears the wall, then putting his head down and jogging around the bases — no pose down at the plate, no bat flip, no chest pounding, no pointing to the crowd, no crow-hop at third, no stutter step before home, no finger guns to the sky thanking his Lord and Savior.

That’s quite a list. As they say in the movies, it’s a list based on actual events. For all the bluster MLB has offered about wanting game times to be shorter, their virtue signaling conveniently goes out the window during home run celebrations.

I’ve been complaining for years MLB is dead set on transforming baseball into a TV show. Well, they’ve succeeded. It started a few years back with Ken Griffey Jr.’s “Let the Kids Play” ad campaign, a commercial showing a string of six straight highlight clips, all home run celebrations, before throwing in a pitcher yawp, then quickly pivoting to an unfortunately iconic clip involving a headfirst slide and a lascivious tongue wagging I refer to as “The Sexual Awakening of Yasiel Puig.”

Griffey’s campaign was originally based on the unwritten rules of baseball — that, and about selling the sport as a TV show while giving hitters top billing. It would be one thing if it was just a case of one player advertising for more baseball celeb culture. But now Griffey’s television ad philosophy has permeated the actual rules of baseball.

Case in point: the pitch clock.

It was the pitch clock that put the Giants’ opening-day comeback in motion. Reds starting pitcher Hunter Greene was in the midst of a dominant outing. He set down the first seven batters he faced, recorded seven of the first nine outs via strikeout, and allowed just one batter to pull the ball — a Mike Yastrzemski worm-burner single to right in the third — through five innings of work.

Greene was on top of hitters all day, including when Heliot Ramos stepped to the plate in the fourth. The young right-hander jumped ahead in the count 1-2 before trying to get Ramos to chase and running the count full. What ensued was an 11-pitch battle, with Ramos fouling off five straight fastballs. The sixth straight, a 99-mph four-seamer over the outside half, Ramos backspun over the right-field wall for a two-run home run.

Thanks to the pitch clock, Greene was huffing by the end of the at-bat. A pitcher used to be able to catch his breath by taking a walk around the mound, rubbing up the baseball, chalking up with the rosin bag. No more. Now a pitcher has to treat every long at-bat like a wind sprint. Advantage hitter. Big time. Just the way MLB wants it.

I’ll give ’em this, it certainly makes for good TV. Who is onscreen more than hitters? Just the pitchers and catchers, and who wants to watch strikeouts for three hours a night? All that is is watching two guys play catch. Not to mention no victory laps, celebration dances, fireworks, etc., etc., etc.

In other words — boooor-rinnnng!

Therein lies the reason NBCSBA was so fixated on Willy Adames’ celebration after Flores’ opening-day home run. They don’t want to show you Flores playing the game the right way. They don’t want to show you the game at all. All they want to show you is MLB the TV Show, evidently starring Willy Adames, current .130 batting average not withstanding.

Remember Mel Brooks’ line after “Spaceballs, the flamethrower”?

“The kids love this one.”

Terry Bernal is a sports writer for the Daily Journal. His views are his own. Please contact by phone at (650) 344-5200 x109, or via email at terry@smdailyjournal.com.