Kansas City Royals Do the Harlem Shake

When there’s downtime during spring training (like this morning during photo day), players have to find ways to stay entertained. Some play cards or video games.

And some dance.

You may have heard of the “Harlem Shake”, the latest dance craze that’s taken over the country. People in offices, libraries, waiting rooms, locker rooms – they’re all doing the Harlem Shake. And now the Royals have their own version.

It starts out innocently enough, as they all do, with a group of people minding their own business while a lone person dances by themselves. Then the music drops and chaos (and hilarity) ensues as everyone starts dancing using costumes or props, or in the Royals case, with their shirts over their head or around their neck, or twirling in the air.

This video features Bruce Chen, Felipe Paulino, Salvador Perez, Luis Mendoza and Kelvin Herrera in the corner of the locker room. It was posted to Luis Mendoza’s Twitter account at @luismendozar. Joel Goldberg pointed out that four countries are represented in the video. Chen is from Panama. Perez and Paulino are from Venezuela. Mendoza is from Mexico and Herrera is from the Dominican Republic.

I believe the Arizona Diamondbacks were the first Major League team to take a shot at the video – and I must say, having manager Kirk Gibson run through doing his trademark celebration from the 1988 World Series is a great touch.

As Ryan Lefebvre might say “you can’t beat fun at the old ballpark.”

Note: I don’t know why the music speeds up in the second part. That’s how it was originally posted on Mendoza’s Twitter feed.