The Cubs Dove Headfirst Into The Very Strange Feud Between Smash Mouth And The A’s

In case you missed it, the Oakland Athletics and Smash Mouth do not like one another. It is the weirdest feud in sports, as the third-worst team in the American League in 2016 and the band that has spent the last 20 years singing “All-Star” got into it recently on Twitter over the way that Oakland’s front office approaches free agency.

Fast forward a few days to Game 6 of the World Series on Tuesday night. Chicago Cubs shortstop Addison Russell played a big role in helping his team force a Game 7. Russell carved up the Cleveland Indians’ pitching staff, going 2-for-5 with six RBIs in Chicago’s 9-3 victory. One of those at bats ended in Russell hitting the first World Series grand slam since 2005 and the first World Series grand slam in franchise history.

The people behind the Cubs’ Twitter account decided to use this as the opportunity to show that they are on Smash Mouth’s side in this feud.

https://twitter.com/Cubs/status/793621530219540482

There is an actual reason for the Cubs to weigh in on this other than a weird attempt at retweets. Russell was originally drafted by the Athletics with the 11th overall pick back in the 2012 Major League Baseball Draft. He was one of the franchise’s top prospects – the kind of player that Smash Mouth would love to have in the organization right now – but got traded to Chicago in 2014 in exchange for a pair of starting pitchers.

While Russell spent the rest of 2014 and part of 2015 in the minors, he’s played at least 142 games for the Cubs in each of the last two seasons. Meanwhile, neither of the two pitchers that Oakland acquired – Jeff Samardzija and Jason Hammel – are still with the team. In fact, Hammel left Oakland after the 2014 season and returned to the Cubs.

Russell is only 22 and he made a massive impact to force a Game 7 on Tuesday night. Additionally, he’s a really good baseball player who happens to be a pawn in a feud between a team in the American League and a band that reached peak popularity in 1999.

Oh, and as you can guess, no one was happier about this tweet than Smash Mouth.

You can’t predict baseball, because sometimes a feud between a band and a team will become a talking point on another team’s social media account during a World Series elimination game.