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March 16, 2015 8:39 AM   Subscribe

Not everyone was delighted when Will Ferrell played 10 positions for 10 different teams (all field positions and base coach) in five games in one day last week in the Cactus League--in order to raise awareness and money for Stand Up to Cancer and Cancer for College--but honestly, most people were. posted by jessamyn (45 comments total) 12 users marked this as a favorite
 
If Major League Baseball had any respect for the game their players wouldn't need spring training at all. They would get players who already had properly calibrated springs.
posted by srboisvert at 8:44 AM on March 16, 2015 [23 favorites]


Uni Watch had mixed reviews on the resulting uniforms.
posted by RyanAdams at 8:46 AM on March 16, 2015 [2 favorites]


Did Keith Olbermann rant about this?

Why yes. Yes he did.

hint: The title is The "Sanctity" of Spring Training.
posted by eriko at 8:46 AM on March 16, 2015 [5 favorites]


I thought this was pretty amusing and, though I'm not a 'real' fan anymore, fully support anything that takes the self-seriousness out of major league baseball.

“That’s a lack of respect. That’s a lack of respect for the game and a (lack of) respect for what players have to do to get where they are.”
- John Madden, 2015

"Another tradition is the Turkey Leg Award, which goes to the most valuable player on Thanksgiving Day. It started out just for fun in 1989. We gave the first one to Reggie White. He was playing for the Philadelphia Eagles and they beat Dallas 27-0. But a typical turkey has only two legs. What if you have more MVPs? What if it's the whole offensive line? Obviously you need more legs on the turkey. So then we started "creating" turkeys with more legs. We made four-legged turkeys, six-legged turkeys, eight-legged turkeys.

To do that we need a lot of turkeys. By Thursday morning, we'll have five or six turkeys and two turduckens on the bus."

- Respectful John Madden, 2001

(And yes, I'm totally aware I'm comparing a spring training game to pre and post game activities. They are basically the same in my eyes.)
posted by MCMikeNamara at 8:47 AM on March 16, 2015 [2 favorites]


He'll probably be better than whoever ends up playing first for the Brewers this year.

sigh
posted by drezdn at 8:48 AM on March 16, 2015 [1 favorite]


I've hit Will Ferrell saturation but raising money for a good cause and doing silly stunts, I mean, how do you hate on that? Sanctity my fucking ass.
posted by josher71 at 8:49 AM on March 16, 2015 [6 favorites]


It's a good thing no professional athlete would ever stoop to the level of appearing in a comedy sketch. Can you imagine the sheer awkwardness and lack of respect for the craft that would display?
posted by Atom Eyes at 8:50 AM on March 16, 2015 [3 favorites]


Yeah, I think Phillies GM Ruben Amaro was disappointed this stunt was in the Cactus League instead of the Grapefruit. A 47-year-old player coming off a long hiatus would be irresistible to Amaro.
posted by gladly at 8:51 AM on March 16, 2015 [10 favorites]


I think the most legitimate gripe that people have had about the stunt comes from players.

While Madden is a football coach, the point he was making is the same one made by Paul Goldschmidt, Arizona's star first baseman: "I would hope he would take it serious because these are guys' livelihoods out there. There's guys fighting for roster spots." When you take away at-bats and opportunities from a guy who has fought for years through the minors (dealing with terrible travel, poor pay, and a lot of hard work), that kind of sucks. That's the respect that Madden is talking about, and he is absolutely right. This is not just a grizzled old man "respect the game" sort of thing, it's respect the effort and sacrifices that a lot of players have put into making it there.

That said, the whole event is really just a microcosm of what Spring Training has turned into in Arizona... it's a huge carnival atmosphere at this point and not really about serious baseball anymore anyway.

It used to be an event largely for baseball nerds and locals... come watch your team's starters for a couple innings, then watch some top prospects and some washed up guys who may make the roster. The only team that really ever drew ridiculous crowds were the Cubs given all the Midwesterners who have migrated to Arizona.

In recent years ticket prices have ballooned and the game has taken a back seat to all the stunts and promotions and events, and all the fancy new stadiums with all their restaurants and lounge areas.

So I think Goldschmidt et al. are fighting a losing battle, sadly. Because Spring Training should be fun, but it's practically first and foremost about a team setting its roster to start the season.
posted by Old Man McKay at 8:55 AM on March 16, 2015 [2 favorites]


He's gonna do for baseball what he did for domestic blended whiskey!
posted by boo_radley at 9:00 AM on March 16, 2015


raising money for a good cause and doing silly stunts, I mean, how do you hate on that?

Because the stunt was just a gimmick!
posted by thelonius at 9:00 AM on March 16, 2015 [1 favorite]


So the guy who turned a sport into a video game franchise is going to criticize a comedian for not respecting a game?
posted by cjorgensen at 9:03 AM on March 16, 2015 [5 favorites]


Spring training is that most American of things: What was once useful is then transformed into a tradition that doesn't make much objective sense, which is weird, and when the going gets weird, the weird turn pro.

In other words, it's just a money-maker now, and apart from trying to figure out who the 25th man on the team will be, nobody, not even the players, gives a shit. Assigning it any "sanctity" is itself sanctimonious.

So, screw you, haters. We're standing up to cancer. And having fun.

(Full disclosure: I went to high school with Will Ferrell, same graduating class, and played on the basketball team with him. We were friendly but not friends. Yes, he was funny back then, but not super-duper-over-the-moon funny; that aspect came later, after he joined the Groundlings.)
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 9:05 AM on March 16, 2015 [11 favorites]


Wait, didn't John Madden host Saturday Night Live? What about the sanctity of comedy?
posted by a complicated history at 9:05 AM on March 16, 2015


The "tak[ing] away at-bats and opportunities" thing is total bullshit. He had two total plate appearances, pitched 1/3rd of an inning, and played for a few minutes in the field. Even if something similar to this were done every year, you're talking about a minuscule effect, and given that most of the 25-man roster is decided, the notion those one or two at bats were the difference between making the big club and not is absurd.
posted by tonycpsu at 9:05 AM on March 16, 2015 [5 favorites]


When you take away at-bats and opportunities from a guy who has fought for years through the minors (dealing with terrible travel, poor pay, and a lot of hard work), that kind of sucks. That's the respect that Madden is talking about, and he is absolutely right.

Yeah, what about all of the rookie players who were itching for their chance to prove they could make a funny video?!
posted by kagredon at 9:07 AM on March 16, 2015


Sure beats the time from when Michael Jordan (and Ted Williams' son, for that matter) tried to make the minor leagues.
posted by Melismata at 9:08 AM on March 16, 2015


Umm...that's not John Madden the Raiders football coach/color man for Fox Sports/Videogame Box guy.

That's the manager of the Cubs and previously the Rays....
posted by kuanes at 9:10 AM on March 16, 2015 [2 favorites]


Nope. There is a Joe Maddon who is in baseball but the guy talking about this is the NFL guy. Confusing!
posted by smackfu at 9:13 AM on March 16, 2015 [2 favorites]


(His friends call him Joe Maddon).
posted by tonycpsu at 9:13 AM on March 16, 2015




As a Sabrmetrician, I could very easily make a mathematical case for how insignificant Ferrell's impact was on these games, individually, or cumulatively. But, as a Sabrmetrician, I'm aware of enough of baseball maths to know it's a waste of my time.

Just as much as it is a waste of John Madden's time to chime in and make himself look like a tired, pathetic, old crank.
posted by LoRichTimes at 9:15 AM on March 16, 2015 [1 favorite]


He had two total plate appearances, pitched 1/3rd of an inning, and played for a few minutes in the field.

Two at-bats and 1/3 of an inning pitching? Is that what this is all about?

Where is the anger when a young All-Star strikes out to end the inning and "deprives" an on-deck, aging minor leaguer the opportunity to pull a Roy Hobbs?
posted by a complicated history at 9:16 AM on March 16, 2015


This Maddin fellow should stick to making unwatchable Canadian movies.
posted by Atom Eyes at 9:19 AM on March 16, 2015 [3 favorites]


I've always enjoyed the EASports Exotic Marigold Hotel games.
posted by kmz at 9:28 AM on March 16, 2015 [3 favorites]


This Maddin fellow should stick to making unwatchable Canadian movies.

What!? He was amazing in Uncle Buck!
posted by stinkfoot at 9:33 AM on March 16, 2015


Ah, those hapless Cubbies. Just when everyone was finally beginning to think they'd put their losing ways behind them, they screw up again. Giving up a washing machine for a bankable A-list star was a savvy move, but then they go and flip him for a churro dog and a D-Bat dog? A couple of ballpark snacks aren't going to put fannies in the seats the way Will Ferrell does, folks!
posted by tonycpsu at 9:36 AM on March 16, 2015 [1 favorite]


There's at least one football coach may feel differently about it than Madden.
posted by klarck at 9:37 AM on March 16, 2015


God willing and with luck someday, respect for the traditions of major league baseball will be restored.
posted by ardgedee at 9:54 AM on March 16, 2015 [2 favorites]


I love this but I'm a little bit sad that no one actually traded him for a bag of baseballs.
posted by graymouser at 9:58 AM on March 16, 2015


I love this not just as a cute stunt but because it's about the closest real life will ever get to one of my favorite baseball-nerd thought experiments, what would happen if major-leaguers competed against ordinary people. That hand pain after the one time he put the bat on the ball! And the Angels infield played him with a pretty extreme opposite-field shift, based on the entirely reasonable supposition there was no way he could catch up with the ball (from journeyman Zach Stewart). Though they were still probably being way too courteous there: to really maximize their chances of getting him out (from, like, 99.9% to 99.99%) they probably ought to've played the infield 15-20 feet further in and brought the outfield in to about the usual infielders' depth.

It's such a weird reductio ad absurdum mismatch, a video-game-stats situation in real life, that it's almost appropriate that Madden's name got involved — this is real-life baseball's "Breaking Madden."
posted by RogerB at 10:01 AM on March 16, 2015 [4 favorites]


Saturday Night Live made a Best of Will Ferrell DVD. It is 72 minutes long. It contains 90 seconds of Ferrell beating on a cowbell and then 70:30 of a test pattern.
posted by delfin at 10:31 AM on March 16, 2015 [1 favorite]


While Madden is a football coach, the point he was making is the same one made by Paul Goldschmidt, Arizona's star first baseman: "I would hope he would take it serious because these are guys' livelihoods out there. There's guys fighting for roster spots." When you take away at-bats and opportunities from a guy who has fought for years through the minors (dealing with terrible travel, poor pay, and a lot of hard work), that kind of sucks. That's the respect that Madden is talking about, and he is absolutely right. This is not just a grizzled old man "respect the game" sort of thing, it's respect the effort and sacrifices that a lot of players have put into making it there.

He took at most one inning of the 315 innings each team plays during spring training. That seems like a pretty small reduction in playing opportunities. I just hope by subbing for him in the outfield for 10 minutes Farrell didn't unintentionally ruin the big league dreams of that Mike Trout kid, struggling up from the minors.
posted by Homeboy Trouble at 10:42 AM on March 16, 2015 [1 favorite]


what would happen if major-leaguers competed against ordinary people.

During the 1994-95 baseball strike, many clubs used replacement players. Nobody was serious about them; they were just negotiating leverage against the real players. But still, it was an opportunity for guys to go out and give it a shot.

What'd we learn? We learned that baseball scouts are actually pretty good at their jobs. Virtually everyone that had MLB-quality talent was already accounted for in MLB organizations. Very, very few replacement players were minimally competent at this level of competition, and if they were, they had either had successful college careers and/or were MLB draftees that took the strike opportunity to get more playing time and visibility.

No civilians truly "walked in off the street," so to speak.
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 10:47 AM on March 16, 2015


Bill Murray also famously played minor league baseball one summer.
posted by Joey Michaels at 10:49 AM on March 16, 2015


Spring training has two purposes: to stretch out the starting rotation, and to figure out who will get the 24th and 25th spots on the roster. I am not a huge Will Ferrell fan, but I can't see how his stunt interfered with either of these purposes.
posted by tallmiddleagedgeek at 10:55 AM on March 16, 2015


What'd we learn? We learned that baseball scouts are actually pretty good at their jobs.

No, what we really learned was that the addition of the Rockies and Marlins the prior year further watered down a league that was already too watered down from the expansion that took place 16 years earlier. What I've learned in all my years in baseball is that the physical ability to throw or hit a 90mph fastball is not something you can teach, that there are only so many that can do it with any consistency at all and all those people make the major leagues. What expansion did was invite mediocrity to the table and that's why we are seeing travel baseball absolutely destroy little league in the last decade. Easy to sell a $3k/year lottery ticket to desperate parents when pitchers with 4.5 era and hitters with .220 avg make upwards of 10 mil a year. Hell, just get drafted and you can get your own lottery terminal and start your own travel program.
posted by any major dude at 11:02 AM on March 16, 2015


It's not all that unusual for entertainers to show up & take a few hacks at a spring training game - a few off the top of my head are Billy Crystal (K'd in one at-bat) and Garth Brooks (who went to camp with the Padres a few years in a row), and the Rangers have brought Russell Wilson into camp for the past couple of years (though he was actually a real minor-league prospect at one time).
posted by zempf at 11:05 AM on March 16, 2015


I would have bet that if someone in the media was going to get all worked up about this it would have been George Will.
posted by The Card Cheat at 11:10 AM on March 16, 2015 [1 favorite]


eriko: “hint: The title is The "Sanctity" of Spring Training.”
This is worth the five minutes just for the list of stunts that have been pulled in games that counted.
posted by ob1quixote at 11:28 AM on March 16, 2015


This is worth the five minutes just for the list of stunts that have been pulled in games that counted.

"I say this with the deepest possible respect for him. John: Shut up!"
posted by eriko at 1:56 PM on March 16, 2015 [1 favorite]


I enjoyed the stunt, and as a Padres fan, I deeply appreciate that Ferrell didn't take the field for them in #19 (as he did for the other teams). That's Tony Gwynn's number, end of story.
posted by librarylis at 2:09 PM on March 16, 2015 [2 favorites]


This is the best. But the first picture I saw of the photoset, my brain lapsed for a split second and thought it was GWBush.

Also, "Norm MacDonald released." HAH!
posted by not_on_display at 5:09 PM on March 16, 2015


I don't follow baseball, but this reminded me to check to see if the neighbor kid that I used to babysit has been called up to the majors yet. And he has! Looks like I'm now a Florida Marlins Fan!
posted by billyfleetwood at 6:38 PM on March 16, 2015 [1 favorite]


Sports fans are funny. They watch the same game being played, over and over. Sure, the players change, as do the events in each game, but there's only so much variation you can pack into the limited confines of fixed rules. I see major league sports as improvised soap operas (which I now think would be pretty interesting). The actors all get their cues, but fill in the rest. The plot twists in all sorts of interesting ways, and the story weaves on. Similarly, as one season comes to an end, there will be another one next year, with players taking the same positions, getting fans ready for another set of upsets, surprise defeats, whatever else may come. So it's great to see someone have fun within the confines of the game. Take it too seriously, and you're bound to be upset at some point. After all, there's always next year.


eriko: Did Keith Olbermann rant about this?

Why yes. Yes he did.

hint: The title is The "Sanctity" of Spring Training.


If this is holy, you have a pretty low threshold for religious experiences.
posted by filthy light thief at 7:48 AM on March 17, 2015


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