Team Victorino gets the last laugh in 3-on-3 MLBx slugfest vs. Philly faves

PHILADELPHIA – Shane Victorino has one more World Series championship ring than Jimmy Rollins and Ryan Howard, and on Sunday evening at Citizens Bank Park, he also added bragging rights for MLBx Presented by Ito En.

“Just another thing. Just another notch,” Victorino said, smiling. “Now, I’ve got a trophy with an ‘X’ on it, so I’m going to give it to them every day that I can.”

MLBx is a co-ed, three-versus-three baseball competition that puts equal emphasis on offense and defense. It’s a three-inning affair, with each player getting an opportunity to hit and field. It is designed to provide a mix of power, athleticism and strategy, giving baseball fans fun, fast-paced action to enjoy.

Team Victorino (Victorino, AUSL star Rachel Garcia and Grammy-winning Latin artist Eladio Carrión) beat Team Howard (Howard, Eagles tackle Jordan Mailata and AUSL star Alyssa Brito) in the finals.

Team Rollins (Rollins, former Eagles receiver Terrell Owens and AUSL star Tiare Jennings) and Team Jones (Andruw Jones, AUSL star NiJaree Canady and "Off Campus" star Antonio Cipriano) lost in the semifinals.

A few thoughts about the event:

Is baseball more difficult than other sports?
Michael Jordan and Deion Sanders both have said that hitting is the most difficult thing to do in sports.

“Here’s the truth: baseball players can look decent doing any sport,” Rollins said. “Basketball players, football players come over to hit in the cage, and as coordinated and athletic as they are in their respective sports, when they get a bat in their hand or a ball in their hand or even a glove in their hand, you’re not a real athlete. You're literally one-dimensional. That’s a joke we have between sports.”

Rebuttal?

“Oh, probably so,” Owens said. “I would say so.

“The scale of comparing the two sports is incomparable right now because I'm literally just hitting a 20-mph ball. I'm struggling already. You know? So I can only imagine trying to hit 90-100 mph balls. That pretty hard. But again, you can't compare the two right now. Like, I'm out here in my undies, swinging at a 20-mph ball in front of an almost sold-out crowd. I'm just out here having fun, man.”

Baseball vs. softball
The AUSL stars had some of the hardest-hit balls of the entire competition. So, what’s the difference between hitting a baseball and hitting a softball?

“I mean, in this situation, I could really just work my launch angle, lift the ball a lot,” Brito said. “But in softball, it's a lot of hitting low line drives, getting on plane and staying level because we can get a lot of pitches, like, up and down and laterally. So it can be a struggle at times. It’s just a lot different having to fix your plane and always be on time.”

So today it was just trying to hit bombs then?

“Yeah,” Brito said, smiling. “Today it was like, let it loose and rip.”

Pre-MLBx tune-ups
Nobody wants to go out and swing and miss, especially former big leaguers. So, Rollins, Victorino and others took a few hacks before the event.

Rollins said he went to a batting cage and spent about $24 over a couple days to tune up.

“It was like $6 for 25 swings,” Rollins said. “So I spent like $12 one day and I'm like, ‘Yeah, that's not gonna be too good.’ I went back the next day, spent another $12 and I'm like, ‘All right, at least I found the barrel. I'm going to go out there and see what we can do.’ But I had to turn it up to 80 [mph]. I won't lie. I had to turn it up to 80, barehanded. I was starting to get a blister. I'm like, ‘No, I can't do this.’”

Owens said he took some hacks just before the event. He said he couldn’t remember the last time he swung a bat. Cipriano and Mailata said they both took swings on Saturday night at the Bank.

“I went out to the park with my friends last week, too,” Cipriano said. “I'm on a beer softball league in New York, too. I'm in the Broadway league. I love it.”