{"id":5840,"date":"2020-06-11T04:28:00","date_gmt":"2020-06-11T01:28:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/how-keith-hernandezs-epic-seinfeld-cameo-came-to-be-i-was-petrified\/"},"modified":"2020-06-11T04:28:00","modified_gmt":"2020-06-11T01:28:00","slug":"how-keith-hernandezs-epic-seinfeld-cameo-came-to-be-i-was-petrified","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/how-keith-hernandezs-epic-seinfeld-cameo-came-to-be-i-was-petrified\/","title":{"rendered":"#How Keith Hernandez\u2019s epic Seinfeld cameo came to be: \u2018I was petrified\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

“#How Keith Hernandez\u2019s epic Seinfeld cameo came to be: \u2018I was petrified\u2019<\/strong>”<\/p>\n

\n This week The Post takes a fresh look at the \u201cbest of\u201d New York sports history \u2014 areas that are just as worthy of debate, but that haven\u2019t been argued incessantly. Today\u2019s edition: the best cameo in pop culture.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

It was a day like any other day in Keith Hernandez\u2019s post-baseball life. The career was in the books, the end hastened by a balky back, and it was a terrific run: Two championships, one in St. Louis and one in New York. A share of the \u201979 MVP. Eleven Gold Gloves. A .296 lifetime average, 2,182 hits.<\/p>\n

Now, he spent a lot of time in that winter of 1991-92 asking himself one question:<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat now?\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Then the telephone rang in his Manhattan apartment: It was Scott Boras, his friend and agent. Boras cut to the chase.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou have an opportunity to do a sitcom episode. It\u2019s a show called \u2018Seinfeld.\u2019 Have you heard of it?\u201d<\/p>\n

Hernandez was still practicing a ballplayer\u2019s nocturnal itinerary: There was little time to keep up with prime-time TV when you had a game<\/a> every night. He knew about the show. He hadn\u2019t watched. But he was intrigued. Boras told him the gig paid $15,000. Sold.<\/p>\n

\u201cI got the call on Thursday,\u201d Hernandez recalls. \u201cScott FedEx-ed me the script<\/a> Friday. And by Saturday, I was on a plane to Los Angeles.\u201d<\/p>\n

It didn\u2019t take long for Hernandez, one of the coolest athletes New York had ever seen, to be struck by a most unfamiliar sensation: pure, unvarnished terror. When the script arrived he realized this wasn\u2019t some one-off scene-stealing spot; this was a full-blown \u201cguest star\u201d gig.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat,\u201d he asked, \u201chave I gotten myself into?\u201d<\/p>\n

Hernandez had never been bashful seeking advice when he was a baseball player, often relying on his father for counsel. And he had a friend, Marsha Mason, who also happened to be a four-time Academy Award nominee for Best Actress. The first thing he needed to do was memorize his lines. She had a trick for him.<\/p>\n

\u201cMemorize Line 1,\u201d she said. \u201cThen memorize Line 1, plus 2. Then Lines 1, 2 plus 3.\u201d<\/p>\n

And so on.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd work on the lines every night before you go to bed. This way they percolate in your mind while you\u2019re sleeping.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hernandez remembers: \u201cOf course, by the time I landed in LA, I hadn\u2019t only memorized all of my lines, but all of everyone\u2019s<\/em> lines. I knew the whole script by heart. But I also knew this: I was playing myself. There was no need to try and be Brando.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Keith<\/img>
Keith Hernandez (l) and Jerry Seinfeld.<\/span>TBS<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The week in LA was a blur: exhilarating, exhausting, terrifying. Seinfeld was gregarious from the start, not surprising since it was his idea to recruit his favorite player from his favorite team for the quintessentially Seinfeld-ian plot of the show, which would become \u201cThe Boyfriend\u201d:<\/p>\n

Jerry and George meet Keith in a gym \u2026 before Jerry can approach Keith, Keith recognizes Jerry and says they should get together \u2026 Jerry behaves like a smitten schoolgirl explaining his new friend to Elaine \u2026 and Elaine winds up going on a date with Keith, and Elaine recognizes Jerry is jealous but wonders \u201care you jealous of him or me?\u201d \u2026 and in a classic subplot it turns out Kramer and Newman have resented Hernandez for years for an incident after a 1987 Mets game \u2026 which Jerry disproves by channeling Jim Garrison and \u201cJFK\u201d \u2026 and the friendship then stalls when Keith asks Jerry to help him move \u2026<\/em><\/p>\n

Got all that?<\/p>\n

There was more. It\u2019s easy to forget but the show Hernandez parachuted in for was only 33 episodes into its run, it had a small and loyal niche audience but was nowhere near the pop-culture behemoth it would become. The crew was never certain of the show\u2019s future and, in fact, co-creator Larry David believed this hour-long episode might well be its make-or-break moment.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was nice enough not to tell me that until later,\u201d Hernandez says. \u201cI was petrified enough.\u201d<\/p>\n