This is a (pretty terrible) buddy comedy to be written: A retired NBA player with an underachiever rep teams up with a disgraced former big leaguer to learn the Art of Pitching. Will both succeed in their journey? Will both find redemption? WILL DISNEY BUY MY SCRIPT?
But yeah, something along those lines is actually happening in the Atlantic League this season—Tracy McGrady is trying out for the Sugar Land Skeeters (Valentines?), with a little help from his own coach, Roger Clemens, who made a short-lived comeback with the Texas minor league team in 2012. From a series of poorly written tweets:
Roger Clemens has been helping Tracy McGradyN his efforts2play pro baseball: “He’s not anywhere close2 pitch 4the Sugar Land Skeeters(more)
— Mark Berman (@MarkBermanFox26) February 4, 2014
More Roger Clemens from Sunday on TracyMcGrady:”The bullpen I watched him throw he was throwing 83maybe 85MPH.He’s still trying 2locate it”
— Mark Berman (@MarkBermanFox26) February 4, 2014
T-Mac claims to be serious: He told Yahoo! that playing baseball is a childhood dream, and and the dream stayed in the back of his mind during his whole basketball career. He insists the try-out isn’t a stunt.
The Skeeters would be nuts to not trot him out for at least a game or two. He’s 6-8 with four pitches! (Plus my god, the ticket sales.)
“Well, first of all, you gotta 6-foot-8 guy standing on the mound. Still working on my velo,” he told Yahoo!. “Command’s pretty good. Fastball, splitter, slider, change.”
[H/T: USA FTW]