When comedian Matt Drufke hires a new producer for his long-running show “Still Not Friday,” he hands him or her a baseball signed by the rest of the staff. “There’s a team component to producing a show and making it happen,” Drufke says. “Handing the producer that ball is me saying I trust you to join this team and do your role.” A baseball in this scenario makes sense: few professions boast underbellies as unforgiving, as humbling, as these two disciplines, the very existence of each a raging fight against failure. Of all the team sports, the professional trajectory of America’s Pastime most mirrors that of comedy: shoddy venues, listless or hostile crowds, and meager pay serve as roadblocks to the folks trying to hone their craft. Perhaps that’s why both are so beloved and, as I see them, necessary cornerstones of American culture. It is also why those within these disciplines, at least those who stick around long enough to endure the noise are some of the grittiest performers in the world.
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The best job I ever had was selling concessions at a minor-league ballpark in Geneva, Illinois. I spent most summer weekends slinging snacks to a family-friendly crowd half-watching the Low-A affiliate Kane County Cougars. The fans mostly wandered between activities on the concourse or engaged with the antics on the field. Nobody I knew was really a supporter of the club. It was more entertainment than baseball—just something to do sans emotional investment.
I always found the minor-league experience funny. Not Abbott and Costello “Who’s on First” funny—though they played that sketch during rain delays—but funny in the way the venue and audience seemed misfit to the attitude on the field. In the tiers of minor-league baseball, “A” ball (Low-A or High-A) is where players begin their careers. If baseball is comedy, Low-A is a local open-mic. But a lot of the players are eighteen or nineteen years old and were recently drafted out of high school to play professional baseball. A dream. They are there to sharpen their craft, to play well and earn promotion to Double A, and eventually to work their way up to the big leagues. Many fail, so the stakes are high. And the stakes are being played out in front of a large, fuzzy Cougar named Ozzie shooting a t-shirt cannon at crowds of kids playing tag in the stands. In one of the most shocking recurring bits, Ozzie drives his golf cart to the opposing team’s third baseman and challenges him to a dance-off while the defense warms up before an inning. The third baseman obliges (prearranged, I presume), and while doing some humiliating dance has his glove stolen by Ozzie, who speeds off in his golf cart and throws the glove over the left-field wall. In one instance, the third baseman put on his replacement glove and made an error on the first play of the inning. Maybe it was the glove. Maybe not. Maybe it was the distraction of the big charade. Either way, nobody would consider that a good working environment for the player.
Kaylee Kowalski served as the director of on-field talent for Kane County from 2021-23 and noted that these types of antics are not only common, but necessary. “Minor league clubs depend on sponsorships, so we have to please the sponsors,” she says. According to Kowalski, there were a handful of big-donor sponsors whose money warranted mandatory on-field promotions, usually involving players. “We’d approach the players and tell them they had to participate. Most went along with it fine. Some thrived in it. But some would definitely roll their eyes at it.” All told, if you’re pursuing a professional baseball career, antics are part of the deal. At the Major League level, Instagram quizzes and polls humanize and connect players with the fans; in the minors, this pays the team’s bills while the players reap a modest stipend. But at all levels, those who succeed share, beyond physical ability, an exceptionally resilient mental fortitude.
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“[For] everyone starting comedy, once you’re past the open-mic rounds, you have nothing but bad shows,” Drufke says. “Bar shows. TVs are still on. They don’t pay well. So often people in the room don’t know comedy is about to happen,” He’s been at it for almost two decades. He has seen or heard almost everything a comedian can face, and he has come to appreciate its effect. “There’s a music community and a comedy community, and musicians don’t understand because everyone comes and drinks or dances. In comedy, you’re asking people to come sit quietly and respectfully. You’re playing a minor-league game where children are allowed on the field. Elements of that make you better at the craft.”
Drufke attributes his quick, loud, high-energy style as a comic to years of working in unfavorable conditions. “My style was built by those shows,” he says. He recalls stealing stools from the bar area to force patrons into sitting near the comedy, at which point it was his job to earn—and keep—their attention. Like many minor leaguers, he knows that noise and heckling come with the territory, so his focus is on the jokes. “I always let people enjoy their nights. I wouldn’t call them out unless they’re being hostile directly to the comic, and you can force engagement with volume, physicality, material, and content.”
As comedy evolves, crowd work for marketable clips on social media is becoming more popular. To some comics, it’s tempting to stray from the craft or act itself, but it also creates a nuanced intimacy between crowd and comedian. Interaction is welcomed, and the comics who can think quickly on their feet—even if just for a clip’s worth of time—can garner followers and fans in a way that was once earned only by years of work in clubs. Still, much like baseball, comedy is a discipline rooted in who can fail the least. (A good batting average in baseball is .300. I’d love analysts to dissect how many times a joke fails before it’s either ditched or forged into a bit that lands consistently.) And much as in baseball, those who survive in comedy must be resilient, able to take loss with a grain of salt and persist. Drufke’s advice? “Build the craft. The right people will be interested, even though most aren’t.”
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We are a community of failures. What I mean is we all carry failure of different variations and definitions with us, and community helps us cope with that truth. I trust Matt Drufke when he says most people aren’t interested in one’s personal comedy, at least initially. But people are interested in comedy. They are also interested in baseball. Comedy clubs generated more than $366 million in revenue in 2023, while Major League Baseball earned more than $11 billion. And perhaps it’s the intersections between industries that create such a draw. Baseball has been one of America’s great escapes for more than a century, allowing people to dip away from their own lives and watch a game. Finding joy in victory is great, but watching a team lose can amount to an unexpectedly easy outlet for projecting anger about something else. Some go to comedy clubs to laugh and escape. Others heckle and provoke. There is little difference between the Wrigley Field bleachers and a raucous comedy club, where the spectator is prone to rooting for the performer to stumble. And that’s the game we all play, in the community of failures. But what happens when the player triumphs? When you heckle a comic and get zinged? Or shout to, say, Mike Piazza as he approaches the plate for the Mets that he’s going to choke, only to watch him hit a game-winning home run in the top of the eighth inning against the Cubs (this happened to me in 2002)? Can you really be that upset? Success and overcoming doubt—both internal and external—are closely interlinked, much like baseball and comedy, and both are highs we chase. Watching others achieve success against the odds gives us hope. Watching those we admire achieve it gives us a vehicle through which to indirectly experience it.
I write this as someone with a mass of deleted rejection slips for poems and essays I’ve written. I don’t keep tallies. I let each failure serve as a temptation to keep trying. When I have a rough week, I’ll find a room to sit quietly and listen to a comedian tell some jokes. With MLB spring training around the corner, I’ll take note of the minor-league guys who have danced with mascots and had tobacco spit on their pants in the dugout by veterans. And I’ll admire how, despite the noise, odds, and inevitable failures, all parties are out there trying. I guess I’m just thankful for anyone making anything, especially with attention to detail and amid obstacles. A craft worth admiring is one honed in the most difficult of circumstances, after all. Cheers to those who choose to play ball.
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