If I know one thing, it is that Tom Brady is a man with many talents. He obviously is a tremendous ladies man — just ask Gisele. As a spokesman for UGG (the fur boots that middle school girls wear), he also has tremendous fashion sense. And he is also pretty good at football.
But he is not good at everything. As anyone who has seen his perpetual five o’clock shadow can testify to, he clearly does not really know how to shave. And he also cannot throw a baseball that well.
This may come as a surprise to dedicated Brady fans. After all, the man was drafted in the 18th round of the 1997 MLB draft by the Montreal Expos. Described by Yahoo Sports as “a catcher with a tall, left-handed power stroke and a rocket arm” (it’s not clear how one can have a “tall stroke,” but that is beside the point), Brady appeared to be a stud in the making. As Yahoo Sports further pointed out, when scouts saw him, they said “Wow.”
We are not sure if Brady had already developed his way with women by this point, or if he was better at shaving in high school, but he certainly had a powerful bat, once hitting two home runs in a single game (I once did the same thing in Little League, but that is neither here nor there).
However, Brady turned down the Expos’ offer and ended his promising baseball career upon graduating high school, choosing instead to pursue football at the University of Michigan. The rest, of course, is history. And that long, illustrious history did not include baseball exploits.
Until now.
Fresh off his Super Bowl championship, Brady and New England Patriots head coach Bill Belichick accepted an invitation from the Boston Red Sox to throw out the first pitch in their home opener.
Unconfirmed reports indicate that Brady was very excited and not even a little bit nervous upon receiving this invitation. And why should he be nervous? Yes, Brady knew that it would be terribly embarrassing for him to not throw the ball all the way to the catcher. But, he reportedly thought, “I throw balls for a living. I used to be a baseball player. The Expos believed in me. I believe in me. I got this.”
Brady went to the mound dressed in an outfit that reflected the tremendous confidence that he was feeling. He wore a backwards Red Sox cap, a t-shirt with a logo on it that seems likely to belong to some sort of skateboard company, big black sunglasses, skinny jeans and a gray sweater tied around his waist.
In short, he looked good.
With Belichick standing behind the mound looking on and David Ortiz crouched in the catcher’s position, Brady wound up for the throw. As he released the ball, he thought to himself, “What a great throw. You are killing it, Tom.”
But his confidence proved misplaced. The ball did not make it all the way to Ortiz. It did not even make it all the way to home plate. And it did not go straight. Brady’s first pitch veered off and to the right, bouncing about a foot in front of the left-handed batter’s box.
Fortunately, Ortiz scooped up the errant pitch, and he quickly raised up his glove to prove that to the world. He jumps up and runs over to Brady, who is walking towards him with a dumb grin on his face.
Come on, Tom Brady. You have the most valuable right arm in the world. You used play baseball in a way that made scouts say “Wow.”
There is no excuse for you not being able to throw the ball all the way to home plate.
