KANSAS CITY, Mo. — It's the great American tradition, isn't it? Baseball, hot dogs, apple pie, and 2Pac.
Wait. Come again?
"We're constantly pushing the (envelope) around here," says Ben Keiter, assistant general manager and director of corporate sales with the Wichita Wingnuts minor league baseball team. "We'll try to keep things PG (rated), or as close to PG as possible."
On that note, wish him luck.
Because, the ‘things' in question are Thursday evening's promotion: ‘Hip Hop Night,' in which the Wingnuts plan to celebrate the works and life of the late rapper Tupac Shakur. Minus the rap battles.
Keiter says Hip Hop Night is heading into Year 5 — "it's just a way to attract non-traditional baseball fans," he notes — but this is the first time the Wingnuts have honored Shakur's memory.
"I've listened to rap and hip hop my whole life," allows Keiter, who admits the promotion is his particular baby. "We plan 65 events (per season), instead of 65 baseball games. That was original. Again, just looking outside of the box."
As of 2010, Shakur had sold more than 75 million albums. He was killed in Las Vegas in 1996, at the age of 25, after being shot multiple times.
"We're not promoting 2Pac and his Thug Life (group), and gangsta rap," Keiter continues. "We're promoting the influence of hip hop on culture today, the influence that big-time stars like that have had."
The Wingnuts ply their trade in the American Association of Independent Professional Baseball, without a Major-League affiliation, so the hook is the entertainment, the complete experience, as opposed to the players themselves. In fact, you could make a case that the Wingnuts' most marketable talent is, in fact, their co-owner — Nate Robertson, a left-handed pitcher who did most of his heavy lifting with the Detroit Tigers and is now with the Rangers' Triple-A affiliate in Round Rock, Texas. Robertson's brother, Josh, is the Wingnuts' president/general manager.
This particular entertainment experience will be presented in tandem with KDGS-FM, Power 93.9, a local, hip-hop radio station. There'll be 2Pac-related prizes such as CDs, LPs and T-shirts, with a steady stream of Shakur's music (edited for family consumption) and Tupac trivia over the course of the ballgame.
But no rap battles.
"No, we might do ‘Finish The Lyrics' or something fun like that," Keiter says. "We're not going to get into any battles. (That's) too serious. We'll keep it as fun and as light-hearted as possible.
"We're going to promote some of the good that 2Pac did in his life . . . he wrote a song about his mama. He wrote a song about how we should treat our women better. So we're going to do our best to avoid any of the gangsta-type of spin and keep it as positive as we can. Again, pretty much promoting the hip hop culture."
Mind you, Shakur also wrote the song "Hit ‘Em Up," which is somewhat less, shall we say, maternal in tone:
Grab your glocks when you see 2Pac
Call the cops when you see 2Pac
Who shot me, but ya punks didn't finish
Now ya ‘bout to feel the wrath of a menace
And did we mention it's $2 beer night as well?
Oh, and that the city's annual Riverfest celebration runs through Saturday?
"So, yeah, this is one type of event that we wouldn't have necessarily done with families," Keiter notes. "We wouldn't obviously do this (promotion) on a Fireworks Night. We're going to do this on Thursday, our beer special night, and so we expect an older demographic to be here and take part.
"We always have ample security on hand. We haven't had any issues (in the past) . . . Riverfest tends to bring Wichita out, sometimes, but that also means we'll have an extra share of security as well. We don't anticipate problems."
Or rap battles?
"There's no rap battles," Keiter says.
You can follow Sean Keeler on Twitter @seankeeler or email him at seanmkeeler@gmail.com
