Straight Outta Cooperstown: The blog where Hall of Famers, rap legends and beautiful puns meet

Here are three things I enjoy:

1. Baseball players, particularly good ones. And especially Hall of Fame-caliber ones.

2. Rappers, particularly good ones.

3. Wordplay.

That makes Straight Outta Cooperstown the most delightful Tumblr in some time. The blog superimposes rappers onto the baseball cards of MLB Hall of Famers -- just in time for induction weekend! -- and combines their names in wonderful, not-at-all groan-inducing portmanteaus like "Ghostface Killebrew" (Ghostface Killah and Harmon Killebrew) and "Cam'Ron Santo" (Cam'ron and Ron Santo). 

Killebrew was the first Zac and Cori, the blog's creators, thought of, but they're particularly proud of "Joe Torreous BIG" and "Lou Brock Shakur" (which, according to them, were the hardest to think of). The NYC-based writers/designers told MLB.com that timing the blog with the upcoming Hall of Fame induction was indeed the plan, and that the forthcoming release of N.W.A. biopic "Straight Outta Compton" (later this summer) happened to be convenient timing.

"It started as a few random puns, but the more we thought about, the more we realized that there are some pretty cool overlaps between baseball and hip hop," they said. "We thought it could make for some nice mashups."

And on their selection process:

"We wanted to make sure to limit it to actual Baseball Hall of Famers and rappers worthy of that designation. But just as with Cooperstown, there's always room for debate on who's worthy."

All that's left is to get these cards into the pun HOF. A few of my favorites:

Lou Brock Shakur

Carl Nastrzemski

Missy Mel Ott

Andre Dawson 3000

Method Mantle

See the rest here. And as for more:

"We have a few more cards in the works, but there are definitely some rappers that we struggle with," Zac and Cori said. "We'd love to get some ideas from some current MLB players..."