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Crystal Strikes Out In His Whiff of Being A Major League Baseball Player
By Administrator | March 14, 2008
Actor / comedian Billy Crystal has dreamed of playing for the NY Yankees since he was seven years old, just as every young baseball fan has dreamed of playing for his hometown team at some point (I dreamt of succeeding Carlton Fisk behind the plate in Boston). And so earlier this week, the Bronx Bombers gave the ultimate Yankees fan his wish… they signed him to a one-day minor league contract.
Yesterday, on his sixtieth birthday and wearing uniform number 60, Crystal was the leadoff hitter in an exhibition game against the Pittsburgh Pirates. He dug in against Pirates southpaw Paul Maholm, worked the count to 3-2 (having fouled a pitch down the first base line) and then swung and missed at a pitch that would have been ‘ball four’. In his one whiff of being a major league ballplayer — a Yankee — Crystal struck out… but in so doing he struck a blow for all of us who spent our youth wishing we could have one at bat playing baseball for our favorite team…
After the game, Crystal said: “It was unbelievable. It was the strangest, greatest moment of my life. I don’t even know how to describe it, it was so intensely good… To hear my name announced as leadoff hitter for the Yankees is something I’ll always have”. Of the encounter with Crystal, Maholm said: “They weren’t BP fastballs, but I wasn’t taking him as serious as I was with Jeter. I tried to lay one in there for him, but not too bad where it was obvious. Good enough to make it look respectable”. (Still, Maholm said his greatest fear was that Crystal would actually get a hit)
Crystal: “It would have been great to (get a hit), but I think it’s better to strike out on a really tough 89 mph pitch than to say I got a single off a 60 mph piece of pie”.
Topics: Around Baseball |
