MLB launches the Fan Cave 2

Inhabiting this baseball Shangri-La will be Mike O’Hara. O’Hara was born in Yonkers, N.Y. and he’s a Yankees fan, but he has lived in Los Angeles for a while where he has been a sometimes actor/sometimes singer for what sounds like a Dropkick Murphys-style punk band called “Nike Air Presto, ” He’s a Syracuse grad who applied and was accepted to law school before deciding instead to move to L.A. and get into the entertainment business. I don’t know how this show/project will do, but so far O’Hara seems to have made wise decisions. Such as not going to law school and leaving his Irish punk band behind in the name of baseball.

O’Hara has a wingman in this endeavor. His name is Ryan Wagner. Wagner is an O’s fan from Baltimore. Wagner has a sports broadcasting degree and has done some stage acting as well as covered the Orioles for 1370 AM in Baltimore.

MLB isn’t describing it this way but, based on both the setup and the reality show backgrounds of the production and creative crew, O’Hara and Wagner will essentially be doing a baseball fan reality show. Except it sounds like it will be less-contrived than MTV-style offerings and will be on multiple platforms. They’ll be on Facebook, Twitter and will write a blog on MLB.com. They’ll do custom videos, including humor bits, man-on-the-street bits, and hosting of guests such as ballplayers and other interesting folks (note: that barber/tattoo chair will be manned by ballplayers’ favorite barbers and tattoo artists).  O’Hara and Wagner will also make appearances on MLB Network.

MLB.com has some videos introducing O’Hara and Wagner to the world. Check it out here.  Gut reaction: O’Hara seems funny and — critically — doesn’t come off as smug or anything, which is totally key for this kind of project. We’re going to see a ton of him and we’ll have to like him or else none of the bells and whistles will matter. I like that Nike Shox NZ,  seems to have lied directly to Mitch Williams’ face about having read his autobiography. This shows both good sense (never give it up to Mitch Williams) and taste (never read Mitch Williams’ autobiography).  As long as he stays away from those Adam Sandler and Christopher Walken impressions when talking about baseball, I think I might like him. Which is saying something because I really don’t like anyone.

One bit of advice to MLB.com, though: I know you guys don’t like allowing people to share and embed your videos of game action, but you really need to make an exception for Fan Cave stuff. If you want it to (as all the kids say) go viral, you’re going to want bloggers and social media mavens to be able to share and blog these things, especially if something funny or scandalous happens. Which, this basically being reality TV, will.

Overall: Execution makes or breaks these kinds of endeavors, but at the outset the FanCave thing sounds fun and promising and there are a lot of reality-style shows that can’t make that claim even before they air an episode.  I’ll be watching, at least at the outset.  I’ll be curious to see if they can hook people.