Yankees sign actor Billy Crystal to play baseball

[Nammer403]

signed for an exhibition game lol thats quite cool, i wonder how much he would get paid for one game.

http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/news?slu...v=ap&type=lgns

[habernac]

I read that yesterday and smiled. No one knows more about the Yankees than Billy Crystal. His movie 61* is excellent, he taught all the actors how to walk/stand, pitch, hit etc like the ball players from the team. He had a baseball scholarship wayyyyy back when to Marshall University but went back home as his father had died.

[Prototype]

Similar to the Garth Brook / San Deigo Padres experiement a few years back? Good on the Yankees tho. For everything Billy Crystal has done for the franchise outside of being a fan and a Season Ticket Holder, good to see them recognize that.

[corporatejay]

Jim Rome was being a goof about this today...good gosh, talk about a guy who takes himself too seriously sometimes.

[habernac]

Rome is an idiot, so that's not a huge surprise.

[moon]

Rome is an idiot but was 100% right about Crystal.

No need for a 60 year old goofball to play in a game, even if it is pre-season. Maybe if he actually had been involved in the game and contributed to the Yankee organization and they wanted to honor him like with the old guy from the Negro league a few years back. But for an actor who is a big fan BP should be good enough.

[604flames]

Jerry Springer had a few "try-outs" with the Reds in recent years as well..

[Clever_Iggy]

Sports Illustrated writer, Tom Verducci suited up with the Jays 3-4 years ago for spring training and wrote a really article on it.

A couple years later, he was an umpire during spring training and followed that up with a cool article.

[habernac]

Originally Posted by moon

Rome is an idiot but was 100% right about Crystal.

No need for a 60 year old goofball to play in a game, even if it is pre-season. Maybe if he actually had been involved in the game and contributed to the Yankee organization and they wanted to honor him like with the old guy from the Negro league a few years back. But for an actor who is a big fan BP should be good enough.

his movie 61* is contribution enough.

[icarus]

In City Slickers his character plays a huge Mets fan... I think that should disqualify him from playing for the Yankees.

[JiriHrdina]

The late great George Plimpton was the pioneer of this stuff. A series of great books on what he called 'participatory journalism'.

He went through Lions camp as a QB
Tended the nets for the Bruins
Pitched to the MLB all stars
Played for a month on the PGA

He's got books on each experience and they are all fantastic.

[Clever_Iggy]

Crystal went down swinging as the lead off hitter in his only spring training at bat. He did get ahead 3-1 in the count and connected to send a ball foul (1st base line).

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/200....ap/index.html

[moon]

Originally Posted by habernac

his movie 61* is contribution enough.

meh...I wasn't a fan and even if I was I am not sure that a mediocre movie is a huge contribution to the game.

Not a big deal if he plays but in my opinion pretty stupid and not really worth it for the Yankees.

[habernac]

Billy rules just for getting a piece of the ball, good stuff. Terrific publicity and a great opportunity for a lifelong fan of baseball. Nice job, Yankees.