Yeah, brother! It’s me, Hulk Hogan, ready to talk to all you little Hulkamaniacs out there about some baseball stuff that’s going down up in Canada. Now, some folks might be surprised that Hulk Hogan cares about baseball. After all, Hulk Hogan is one of the greatest sports entertainers of all time. Between the WWE, my TV show, taking down George Foreman, keeping my daughter Brooke away from college dudes and guys with more hair on their back than on their head, and taking all my vitamins, it’s a wonder that the Hulkster has enough time to relax in a tanning booth. But Hulk Hogan plays as hard as he works, and when it’s time to get my spine realigned, there’s nothing better than watching some good old Major League Baseball. I love this game, brother!

Now, before I start, I gotta say that I’m an All-American type of guy, but that doesn’t keep me from giving respect to the Toronto Blue Jays for toughing it out this season. It’s gotta be extra hard, coming from a foreign country, trying to compete with good old American know-how every single day with a language barrier staring you right in the face like a Macho Man elbow. After all, what’re you gonna do when the Yankees and Red Sox run all over you? But Toronto tried this year, brother. They went out there and they spent money like the big boys, loading up for the 2006 season. They got themselves great pitching, and great hitting, and for a while Hulk Hogan thought things were gonna change for these guys.

But now folks are claiming that the Blue Jays are done for, and they’re calling for some folks to get their asses canned. They’re talking about manager John Gibbons and his public run-ins with some players. There’re even rumors of some unpublicized run-ins with Gibbons and other players behind the scenes. Hell, even the front office is going at it, what with GM J.P. Riccardi taking it to ESPN writer and former Blue Jay co-worker Keith Law. But this ain’t about the suits mixing it up. This is about a ladder match where the prize is respect. This is about the warriors, the guys in the trenches going at each other’s throats, without anyone backing down, with no quarter given, winner take all.

All I gotta say to this is – right on, brother! If it were up to me, baseball would have a lot more of this stuff going down every day. It’s a long season these guys play, and it’s long for the fans, too. Sometimes, you gotta wake folks up with a little something, and there’s no better way to do that than by throwing down. Some of the best moments in baseball are brawls. Pedro Martinez taking down Don Zimmer. Chan Ho Park hassan-chopping Tim Belcher. That White Sox fan taking down the Royals’ first base coach. That’s entertainment, no matter what some old folks might say, and entertainment’s good for the game. There’s no such thing as bad publicity, brother – take it from a pro wrestler. If the WWE can survive Maven and Golddust, then the Blue Jays can survive this stuff.

Also, all these guys making millions of dollars to throw a ball around, they gotta be kept in line. Back in the day, guys like Ted Lilly and Shea Hillenbrand would be playing for their paychecks, and they’d have to bust their tail every single day. But nowadays, folks are just sitting back, wearing armor on their arms and legs and only pitching for six innings, and then going back to their penthouses to cash their million dollar paychecks. It’s like folks forgot what it’s like to actually compete. The Hulkster knows about competition. The Hulkster’s had more work done on his knees and back than Joan Rivers had done to her face. And you know why Hulk Hogan did all this? He did it for the fans. He did it for that feeling you get when you have thousands of people cheering for you, when the eyes of the world are focused on your 22-inch pythons and they’re waiting for you to rip off your shirt. Getting paid’s a nice bonus, but if it don’t grab you in the nuts and squeeze, brother, it ain’t worth doing.

That’s what Gibbons is trying to teach these guys. You can’t just pout on the mound, or leave to go adopt some Sally Struthers kid, and expect that to get the job done. You gotta be a man about it. If you suck, you suck – deal with it. If you get called out, step up and take your hits. If you got a problem with someone, you deal with it head-on. And if it comes down to taking it outside, you better bundle up, brother, because it’s cold out there. Doesn’t matter if you gotta use your fists, or a folding chair, or a championship belt. Don’t ever back down, and don’t ever give up, unless you like losing. Second place is first loser, and if Hulk Hogan learned anything from these confrontations, it’s that John Gibbons ain’t a loser. He’s trying to teach these guys that they’re not losers, too, and if they can’t figure it out by example, they’re gonna figure it out with his fist in their teeth. And if they don’t figure it out, then maybe a real American is gonna have to update his passport and take a trip up north to show these hosers what playing an American sport is really all about. And you don’t want that, brother.

Hulk Hogan’s Five Demandments are: train, say your prayers, believe in yourself, believe in Hulk Hogan, and eat your vitamins. And when Hulk Hogan says “vitamins,” Hulk Hogan means “vitamins.”