armchair cultural observation since 1995

Bill Murray’s minor league baseball odyssey remembered

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Bill Murray really only wanted to play baseball and golf during the summer of 1978 and he was accomplishing one of those things playing for the Grays Harbor Loggers when the opportunity to star in Meatballs came his way.

Murray, who was known for Saturday Night Live but wasn’t yet a bonafide star, ended up spending five weeks with the minor league baseball team representing the twin cities of Aberdeen and Hoquiam, Washington and the team would go on to win a championship.

This odd chapter in minor league baseball and Bill Murray history is retold in great detail in an Oral History on Fox Sports.

I wouldn’t be surprised and would actually be pretty excited if the story is optioned for a movie.

1 Response »

  1. I was at the game in Hoquiam that night with my small children. It was great fun, as I remember it he got a single. Bill was not yet a big star and the crowd was maybe only 100 to two hundred people and he had us group tightly together and led us in cheers and pretending that he hit a home run and we as a group pretending to follow the ball out of the park.
    It was such a great time. Sat night live had a piece in the first couple of shows of that season called What I did on my summer vacation(something like that) anyways I thought he had clips from Hoquiam but I can’t find them.

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