Traina Thoughts: Phillies' Maikel Franco Gives Us the Bat Flip of All Bat Flips

Maikel Franco's must-see bat flip had a little bit of everything.

1. Maikel Franco hit a game-winning three-run home run for the Phillies on Thursday night. That meant it was time to bat flip and Franco did not disappoint. His bat flip was so intense, so vicious, so powerful that he knocked off his own helmet.

Franco gave us a little bit of everything there: Very long staredown of the dinger, mile-high bat flip, knocking off his own helmet. An A+ performance all around.

And fortunately for Franco, his manager Gabe Kapler, is a big fan of bat flips, which he revealed on a recent episode (at the 26-minute mark) of the SI Media Podcast.

2. Charles Oakley would do anything to get the job done on the court during his playing days with the Knicks and apparently he has that same philosophy while plays poker. According to TMZ, Oakley was busted for cheating—allegedly—during one round of Texas Hold 'Em. It seems Oakley liked to play it fast and loose with the chips and his wagers. 

3. Rams running back Todd Gurley signed a four-year, $60 million contract extension last week. Yesterday, he gave us the Quote of the Day.

4. Who will be the breakout star of Hard Knocks when the new season begins on Tuesday? Does HBO think it could ever get the Patriots to do the show? Is Baker Mayfield hiding out in an RV to avoid being filmed? All of this is covered on the newest edition of the SI Media Podcast with Hard Knocks Senior Coordinating Producer Ken Rodgers.

The podcast also features a conversation with New York Post sports media reporter Andrew Marchand. We discussed the impact Les Moonves's controversy could have on CBS Sports, whether The Athletic made a good move hiring Shams Charania, the mass layoffs at the New York Daily News sports department, Mike Francesa's upcoming app that is supposed to have things no other app on earth has and much more. You can listen to the podcast below or download it on iTunes.

5. The NFL is so incredibly stupid sometimes that it's hard to fathom. For the NFL and Maddento claim the scrubbing of Colin Kapernick's name from a song featured the game was "an unfortunate mistake" is such a patheic excuse and cover up. This will only come back to haunt the league down the road. Kaepernick himself has stayed quiet about this mess except for this one tweet:

However, he retweeted several posts from his girlfriend Nessa.

Typical greedy NFL. They got away with successfully blackballing Kaepernick, but that wasn't enough. They had to have more and the league actually went out of its way to remove his name from a song in a video game. Could you be more petty and childish and vindictive? And the NFL will deny over and over and over that this decision came from them, but if you believe they did not order the code red, you're a dope

6. I'm sure Twitter won't have any reaction to this.

7. This new mayor of Knox County, Tenn., once set Jim Ross on fire.

8. Just wan to give a shoutout to the Dan Le Batard Show, Stugotz and all their listeners who contine to send me tweets after hearing my name mentioned in one of the drops on their show.

Traina Thoughts is the best of the Internet, plus musings by SI.com writer, Jimmy Traina. Get the link to a new Traina's Thoughts each day by following on Twitter and liking on Facebook. Catch up on previous editions of Traina Thoughts right here. And make sure to listen to and subscribe to the SI Media Podcast hosted by Jimmy Traina.

IN CLOSING: Only 35 days until the first game of the NFL regular season.