Let’s watch ‘The Mack’ and fix baseball

transcribed from my notebook on Mar. 27, 2025

“How in the hell can you drop a ball like that?”

I’m not in the business of telling people how to do their jobs, I promise (that just sounds like adding more jobs on top of my own). But I do believe that we can put away the studies and surveys and research departments in lieu of a simple, tangible remedy for one of the biggest problems facing the sport of baseball. Shit, I’ve spent years toiling over the fact that Black people are playing baseball less and less, to the point where the percentage of the MLB population has dwindled down to the single digits for more than a decade. Now, I realize that we’ve been going about it all wrong. If we’re going to rebuild the Black baseball tradition, we’re going to start by having everyone watch The Mack (big shoutout to Alfreda’s Cinema for showing the 1983 re-release at BAM), which shot-for-shot, has the best baseball scene of any non-sports movie that I’ve seen.

If you’re Black, The Mack’s reputation precedes itself, possibly without your knowledge. Upon viewing, it’s clear how the godfather of Blaxploitation cinema in Oakland has seeped into the foundation of Black popular culture. Each scene is like having your sleeper cell phrase activated and pinged nonstop. If you’ve ever aimlessly wondered with passive curiosity about the cultural etymology of “I Choose You” and choosing up, you’ve found your answer. Hey, how did Dave Chappelle get the inspiration for the The Playa Haters' Ball? By doing a shot-for-shot recreation of The Players Ball that sees the suave Blondie (Max Julien) crowned as the No. 1 Player in town. It’s like you can see the endless samples from rap history falling into place, as if the building blocks of the coolest corners of your cultural lexicon have been uncovered.

There’s an unbelievable amount of room to wax poetic about the sexual, racial, and gender politics of Blaxploitation cinema, starting with public enemy No. 1, The Mack. The landing space to lambast the movie is ample, and most (if not all) of the gripes with the culture it birthed, perpetuated, and glorified are warranted. But, much of that conversation is fueled by the fact that The Mack is held up and revered by how goddamn cool and funny it is.

Blondie’s cult of personality is so infectious that it almost coats him in a suit of armor for much of the movie; Slim (Richard Pryor) presses all the correct comedic and dramatic buttons without breaking a sweat. Though the arc is a rather loose morality play that nets tangible consequences for Blondie’s loved ones; for much of the movie, the takeaway is this—pimpin’ is easy and lucrative. Even when Blondie is roughed up by corrupt white cops, rival pimps, and an overbearing past crime lord, his smooth talkin’, fast-paced wit blisters off his tongue with such hilarity and conviction that you think you’re witnessing a genius spar with dummies. The magnetism of the character and his demeanor is enamoring. And in the middle of this world where pimpin’ is easy and worth the hassle, lives the Players Picnic—a “holiday” for the pushers and the prostitutes.

“Today is a holiday. Ain’t nobody getting laid today.”

The Players Picnic scene is as perfect as it is short, oscillating between a baseball game and a cookout in rapid succession. Here you’ve got the Players and their women dressed to the nines, satin suits and go-go boots laced up, playing a joyous game of baseball, where everyone on the field is Black. It’s the most fun that anyone has ever had on screen. It’s as if they bottled up the luxurious swagger of the lives they led off the field and released it on a crappy dirt diamond in East Oakland.

You see Slim get caught in a pickle, darting back and forth to avoid getting tagged, before rounding the bases in triumph (I like to think that the writers of The Sandlot saw this scene and decided to put Benny “The Jet” Rodriguez in the same predicament). Laughs erupt as Players swat at the ball in dubious efforts to catch them. When one of the ladies steps up to the plate, the slow pan up to her face from her feet makes the catcher lose his mind, lamenting on how he’s supposed to play the position with this level of beauty standing distractingly right in front of him. Even when a miniature fracas breaks out at home plate at the conclusion of a play, it’s broken up with riotous laughter. The shit talking rolls of the tongue and fires around the diamond like the ball itself, cracking up the entire field up at every loving barb. There are nothing but smiles on the screen, and I could do nothing but sit there and return the favor from my seat.

Here, in a violent movie where danger is swatted away with a cool disposition, is a scene of unadulterated euphoria, soundtracked by the crack of baseball bats and popping of gloves. It’s the platonic ideal of what baseball used to be for a lot of Black people across America, where it was so prevalent and ingrained in your history that grabbing a group of your loved ones to play in the park was as natural as breathing air. One of the few scenes in the movie to exist fully in sunlight, it’s all bliss, it’s all baseball, it’s all Black. If The Mack arrives 15 or 20 years later, this scene is replaced on asphalt with hoops and basketballs, where home runs swings have given way to dunks and hi-tops. Instead, it freezes a tableau where baseball is played by the coolest, baddest motherfuckers around. And if that’s not aspirational, then I don’t know what is.