Baseball stadium in Orlando? How about a baseball opera in Orlando! | Commentary

Running off at the typewriter …

Hey, maybe more sophisticated Sentinel columnist Scott Maxwell is starting to rub off on me. While Maxwell and I were recently debating the merits (or demerits) of Orange County spending nearly a billion dollars to build a stadium and lure a Major League Baseball team to Orlando, he introduced me to Gabriel Preisser — a Grammy Award-winning opera singer who will be performing in a baseball musical this weekend.

Maxwell, of course, is erudite and cultured and goes to plays and operas all the time, but this one sounds like a musical that we sports fans will actually love. The name of the show is Baseball: A Musical Love Letter and I am ultra-intrigued after talking with Preisser and reading the media release.

The family-friendly show (aka Gov. Ron DeSantis won’t close down the theater if you bring your kids) will be at Harriett’s Orlando Ballet Centre (Friday at 7:30 p.m. and Sunday at 2 p.m.) and “weaves together the history of baseball with music from every corner of the American songbook: opera, musical theater, and jazz. This production is an intimate, cabaret-style performance that traces baseball’s early years from the 1919 Black Sox Scandal and the jazz age; to the rise of the Negro Leagues and a celebration of Jackie Robinson; to WWII and the establishment of the Women’s Baseball League; to a final celebration of baseball as the Great Equalizer — place where all are welcome.”

Because there are nine players on defense in baseball, there will be nine singers in the show, including famed folk singer Danny Cox, whose father played in the Negro Leagues alongside Jackie Robinson.

Preisser grew up in Apopka, and his father Gary was the former Orange County athletic director and a high school football coach at Bishop Moore, Edgewater, Dr. Phillips and Evans. Preisser was an all-county football player at West Orange High who used to sing the national anthem before games while wearing his football uniform. He went to Florida State to study music and got a master’s in opera at the University of Houston.

“Sports are a big part of my life and my family’s life,” Preisser says. “Anytime you can marry the arts with different parts of our lives such as sports, it makes it special and it makes you realize that we have a lot more in common than we thought.”

I can vouch for that.

If you can actually get a sports writer like me interested in going to the opera, then this show is already a grand slam. …

Short stuff: Orlando may have even more competition to host Jacksonville Jaguars regular-season home games should the team have to find a new place to play for a couple of seasons while Jacksonville renovates its football stadium. There’s some chatter that a reconfigured Daytona International Speedway might be in the mix to host some Jags games. If so, maybe the Jags can also sign NASCAR agitator Ross Crashtain, er, Chastain to wreck the opponent’s entire game plan … From David Whitley of the Gainesville Sun: “Bo Jackson revealed last week he’s had the hiccups since last July and will soon undergo a medical procedure to try to cure them. ‘I have done everything — scare me, drink water upside down, smell the [butt] of a porcupine. It doesn’t work,’ Bo said on the McElroy and Cubelic radio show. Oddly enough, that’s the same therapy regimen Auburn boosters have used to try to find a coach they like. …

Many Magic fans were rightfully disappointed Tuesday night when the team lost out on the Victor Wembanyama lottery sweepstakes, but, hey, you can’t win ’em all. The Magic still have an exciting young nucleus in Rookie of the Year Paolo Banchero, Franz Wagner, Wendell Carter Jr., etc. — and they have two lottery picks (No. 6 and No. 11) in the upcoming draft. The question is: Do the Magic really need two more young players added to the third-youngest roster in the league or will they package the two picks and try to move up in the draft? … The WNBA suspended coach Becky Hammon for just two games for allegedly bullying a pregnant player. If she were a male coach, is there any question she’d be out of a job? … Speaking of someone who should be out of a job, the Idiot of the Year Award goes to ESPN’s Kendrick Perkins for suggesting a few weeks ago that white voters were racist if they cast their MVP ballot for Denver Nuggets superstar Nikola Jokic. In this day and age of forced apologies, why hasn’t Perkins apologized for such a moronic statement? …

Will the next championship-winning NBA coach who gets fired please turn out the lights and go collect your mega-million-dollar buyout? … By the way, I hate to say I told you so, but I’ve been saying for years and years that NBA coaches are sort of like NFL running backs — they’re a dime a dozen and you can always find a decent one out there somewhere. Case in point: Championship coaches Doc Rivers (Philly), Mike Budenholzer (Milwaukee) and Nick Nurse (Toronto) all have been fired in recent weeks as has highly regarded Monty Williams (Phoenix). In all, three of the last four NBA championship-winning coaches (including ex-Magic coach Frank Vogel for the 2020 L.A. Lakers) have been fired, with Steve Kerr the only survivor. I’m not saying NBA coaches don’t matter; I’m just saying they don’t matter that much. Even the greatest NBA coaches make little difference when things go bad. Exhibit A: Gregg Popovich won five championships with Tim Duncan and Co. but has had four consecutive losing seasons with a bad roster. …

With Atlantic Coast Conference schools such as FSU and Clemson constantly carping about the widening revenue gap between their conference and the SEC and Big Ten, I’m starting to think ACC should stand for “Another Cash Complaint” … The NFL is taking another big step by streaming one of its wild-card playoff games exclusively on the digital platform Peacock. As a traditional TV-watching sports fan, I say to hell with Peacock and this is a bunch of Poppycock! … Memphis Grizzlies star Ja Morant is in trouble again with the NBA for riding around in a car while displaying a gun on Instagram. Hey, if he gets kicked out of the NBA, he can always run for office in Florida, where our politicians encourage people riding around in their cars with guns. …

Last word: From Sugar Ray Leonard, who turned 67 Wednesday: “At 14, I was the most disciplined guy around. I would get up at 5 o’clock in the morning and run five miles, and then go to school. Sometimes I would run behind the school bus, and the kids thought I was just crazy. I knew what I wanted.”