Adrian Beltre and Felix Hernandez have a playful rivalry that the world doesn't deserve

Everyone knows that Adrian Beltre has more fun playing baseball than anyone alive. He throws his entire being into every game, and that includes his personality. On Thursday night that glorious personality was on full display when Beltre’s Texas Rangers took on the Seattle Mariners, and Felix Hernandez got in on the fun.

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In the second inning, Beltre and Hernandez were facing off. Beltre hit a comebacker to the mound, which Hernandez snagged. Beltre saw him grab it and then broke out in a huge smile as he ran up the first base line, and then Hernandez started jogging with him as he threw the ball to get Beltre out at first. It was thoroughly delightful, and there was more where that came from. In fact, Beltre and Hernandez spent most of the night playfully jawing at each other anytime Beltre was up.

Beltre and Hernandez actually go way back, from when they were teammates on the Mariners a decade ago. The two had a… well, let’s call it a special relationship.

“It’s not a conversation station” is just one of the many, many reasons Adrian Beltre is an awesome human being.

Their relationship goes even farther. Back in July, Yahoo Sports’ own Jeff Passan revealed that King Felix was the first person to discover Beltre’s aversion to head touching. When Beltre left for the Boston Red Sox, King Felix told Beltre’s new teammates about it, and that’s how the saga of the head touch was born.

Even though Hernandez is the reason that Beltre gets his head touched all the time now, the two are still friends. You could see how much respect that Hernandez has for Beltre in July after Beltre reached the 3,000 hit milestone. Hernandez came off the mound before Beltre’s at-bat to give him a hug of congratulations.

It’s really rare to see guys on different teams having this much fun when they’re facing off as batter and pitcher. Now imagine if this happened with more batters and pitchers. Imagine if baseball was somehow even more fun than it is now. It would be madness, I tell you. Madness!

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Liz Roscher is a writer for Big League Stew on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email her at lizroscher@yahoo.com or follow her on twitter! Follow @lizroscher