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When it comes to interviewing actors, some people want them to stick to talking about acting. I've given an actor license to do much more, but hold your fire - because it's too much fun to have an actor who wants to talk baseball - really talk baseball.
A couple of years ago, I got the assignment from my editor at Variety to do a feature on John C. McGinley, the artist currently known as reluctant mentor and anger-mismanagement expert Dr. Perry Cox on the NBC comedy Scrubs. You're just happy to share the field with a quality actor in a quality show, but little did I expect the conversation to begin like this:
Weisman: "How're you doing this morning?"
McGinley: "Well, the Yankees won last night, so I'm doing great."
And so my entertainment interview with McGinley, who has played roles ranging from Sgt. Red O'Neill in Platoon to Bob Slydell in Office Space, began with 10 minutes of straight shooting about baseball, before we finally forced ourselves to talk about his Emmy-worthy performance on Scrubs.
As much as anything else that day, what I learned is that McGinley will talk baseball anytime, anywhere. So during his vacation break from shooting the fifth season of Scrubs (which returns to air Tuesday with back-to-back episodes starting at 9 p.m.), it took no convincing to get him to not talk shop, and instead talk sports.
The first words out of his mouth after the initial exchange of hellos? "I feel really, really good about (Nomar) Garciaparra," referring to the Dodgers' recent free-agent singing.
"I like that signing. I don't love it; I like it," McGinley added. "I like it because they didn't have to give anything away for it. … I think he's a quality player, and I think he's going to thrive out there."
While acknowledging that Garciaparra might not physically be the player he once was, he was surprised at the caterwauling out of Boston about Garciaparra's clubhouse personality.
"Everyone's talking about he's such a cancer," McGinley said. "Give me a cancer who wins three batting titles and hits .360."
Having had a residence in Southern California for years now, McGinley has grown familiar with the Dodgers. But it would be misleading to go much further in that direction, when his first baseball love remains the Yankees. McGinley grew up in Short Hills, New Jersey, and his fondest baseball memories reside at Yankee Stadium.
"Ron Blomberg becoming the first DH," McGinley said of his earliest baseball recollections, "and then for the Mets, when the Mets were playing at Yankee Stadium, I saw Willie Mays hit a home run. I couldn't believe my eyes. It's not that early, but I remember it vividly.
"Other than that, I just remember those Reggie Jackson teams winning the World Series," McGinley continued. "Those guys, they just rocked me. I just lived and died with the Yankees."
Asked to name his single favorite baseball memory, the first thing that came to mind was Yankee reliever Rich "Goose" Gossage.
"Every time he came in, he looked like was going to kill someone," McGinley said. "It just looked like he was going to kill someone."
And then, in the mid-1980s, McGinley got to see something Dodger fans didn't - Darryl Strawberry at the height of his game.
"For a stretch there," McGinley said, "when Strawberry stepped to the plate, waving the bat lefthanded, à la early (Gary) Sheffield, literally every time he stepped into the box, it looked like he was going to hit a home run. That stroke was just from God."
Asked to name his baseball hero, McGinley Blinked the late Yankee catcher, Thurman Munson, and after him, first baseman Don Mattingly.
"I want to love Bobby Murcer," McGinley said, citing one of his early fascinations, "but I couldn't feel it."
McGinley segued into talking about hanging out with former Yankee and current Mets manager Willie Randolph on the field a couple of times this year, and it became clear that for this actor, access to athletes is a perk much more important than having the biggest trailer.
"It's been the total biggest benefit, aside from being able to do stuff for Down Syndrome," McGinley said. (His son, Max, was born with Down's Syndrome, and McGinley is the spokesman for the National Down Syndrome Society's Buddy Walk program.) "You get the NBC tickets every once in a while, and they're not in the bleachers. They're pretty fantastic, to tell you the truth."
McGinley's brushes with athletic greatness aren't limited to baseball. While filming the football movie Any Given Sunday, director Oliver Stone had McGinley rehearse Hall of Fame linebacker Lawrence Taylor.
"It was a really ambitious (monologue) to give a non-trained actor to do," McGinley recalled. "I worked with LT on that, and the tradeoff was he would explain Cover 2s.
"And I found myself at the Orange Bowl with LT, whom I grew up worshipping, explaining Cover 2s. … And I'm thinking, 'I've got LT talking to me.' But after spending four weeks with him on that monologue - which he nailed - it was like, 'Of course, I'm talking to LT.' "
McGinley next talked about two of his neighbors: hockey star Chris Chelios ("God, I love him. He's having the renaissance year of his career.") and surfer Laird Hamilton, "who is probably one of the five best athletes on the planet." This led, inevitably, into another vitally unimportant digression.
"We were doing this the other day," McGinley said. "If you're doing the greatest (athletic) freaks of all time, the easy ones are (Michael) Jordan, (Babe) Ruth, because of the crossover with his pitching. I easily put Jim Brown on there because of his lacrosse crossover."
McGinley added Wayne Gretzky to his top five, but got tough when it came time to pin down the fifth.
"Fifth is tough - and don't freakin' say Muhammad Ali to me," McGinley warned. "What he did politically is unbelievable, but you can't put up a boxer - it's fixed. … (John) Cusack was arguing to me the other day about boxers, I'm like dude - it's not their fault, but you cannot have it."
"It's tricky with non-modern athletes," McGinley continued. "(Jim) Thorpe was an Olympian, the greatest player of his era. … People like to put Jesse Owens on there."
Unwilling to commit to evaluating athletes within their given era, McGinley returned to the more recent.
"A lot of people try to put Bo Jackson on there," McGinley said. "Bo Jackson, if he had stayed healthy, would be right up there with Jordan.
"Barry Bonds is clearly one of the greatest athletes in the history of the species. What he's done may in fact be unbelievable. I can't take everything away from him because of the (small) number of strikes seen in a game - and he tags it."
In the end, McGinley left the question of the top-five athletes unanswered - meaning he'll be picking it up again in no time.
Obviously, McGinley is not alone among actors in his sports infatuation. Cusack is deep into it, according to McGinley, though no one may be more hardcore than D.B Sweeney of Eight Men Out and The Cutting Edge.
"Sweeney is right up there," McGinley said. "And (Tom) Sizemore, before he got into all this trouble, he had close to a photographic memory. He was kind of like Bob Costas; he was unbelievable.
"D.B. is just, I don't know, he'll just go toe-to-toe with anybody on anything, just because he likes to argue. Plus he's just a Red Sox freak, even though he's from Long Island. He likes Yaz (Carl Yastrzemski) because Yaz's dad was a potato farmer from Long Island.
"Johnny is a pretty great Chicago sports freak, but it kinds of ends there. He kind of has blinders on. All he can talk about are the '85 Bears and Jordan - it's just a little stupid. For instance, he tried (on his list of top-five athletes) to put Scottie Pippen."
"I've had to hear from John how the Cubs now have the fastest outfield in baseball. No joke - a lot of speed. (And) no hitting."
McGinley also incorporated baseball into a self-improvement book project he completed for publication a year from now. Inspired by a Canadian cartoon character, the book is The Untalkative Bunny: How to Be Heard Without Saying a Word. The book focuses on the importance of non-verbal communication, and baseball comes into play in a chapter about perseverance, which McGinley defined as the rate at which you can return to effort from an unforeseen circumstance.
"In the Hall of Fame, .302 is the median batting average for offensive Hall of Famers. Even if they fail seven out of 10 times, they got back in the box as quickly as possible, it's the one thing Hall of Famers do. … What you can do nonverbally: you can return to effort. It's the one thing you can control, no one can take that away from you. You may not be able to control that the fax machine broke. You don't have control over that, but you do have your effort, and you can do something else."
Just as the Scrubs interview a couple of years ago leapt easily into baseball, the informality of this baseball talk couldn't help but find its way back to talking about the television show, especially with the season premiere finally arriving following its surprising early season benching. It was a hiatus that McGinley understood intellectually even as he struggled with impatience.
"Now that networks are allowed to produce and own their own content, the mandate at NBC is to create and own," McGinley said, citing The Office as an example. "Disney is the producer of Scrubs, so you're hosed.
"When you're the new head of NBC (Entertainment), Kevin Reilly, he's a super guy, but he needs a hit on his watch, but (we're) not that. We're on (former NBC Entertainment president) Jeff Zucker's watch. We come back, we do okay - Kevin doesn't get any credit for it. (My Name Is) Earl is doing well for him, but that's 20th Century. That doesn't really fulfill the mandate he was given. Will and Grace is a perfect example - NBC Productions for NBC, they make a killing on that."
"All I can tell you is it's good to be back on the air. Of the first 13 we did (this season) … I'd say 10 were A-pluses, and 3 were B-pluses. The writers came back from getting nominated for Emmys loaded for bear. … Wait 'til you see the first couple. We did a Wizard of Oz Scrubs that's so good. Zach (Braff), of course, plays Dorothy, and the other three play the Lion and the Scarecrow and the Tin Man. I, of course, am the Wizard."
From his excitement at talking about Scrubs, you are reminded that acting really is the stuff that comes first for McGinley. It's not a job; it's a passion - and he takes it seriously. You could say he gets his game face on.
"I love (reading about baseball) if I don't have a rant I have to get into my dome in the next 10 minutes," McGinley said. (In case you haven't seen Scrubs, McGinley's character has a mile-a-minute monologue or two in about every episode.) "But if Billy (Scrubs executive producer Bill Lawrence) has me going on a rant, then everything else stops."
Still, his love of baseball is there. Someday, everything else may stop long enough for McGinley to win an Oscar or Emmy. If that happens, most will look for McGinley to celebrate the craft, his colleagues, his son.
But as McGinley takes the statuette and goes to the podium to speak to the millions around the world via satellite, I'll also be looking for him to give me a few words about the latest Yankee score.
Did McGinley actually figure out the median career batting average for HOFers?
By the way, Jon, a commenter over at Bronx Banter is questioning your secret identity (in a nice way) . . .
Then again, I don't think I've ever seen Alex in person ever.
In this day and age - maybe any day and age - a series run of five years is something to be proud of. And as you said, the loss of Hartman was a lot to overcome.
By the way, today I was rereading my Variety story on McGinley today (the story was dated June 2004) and noticed that he called John Spencer "the best actor on television."
Very good work, Jon.
Looks like I'm gonna have to retire one of my favorite screen names from the ESPN board (i.e. "DoneGiovanni").
Do you believe in Miracles?
Yes. Thus "DoneGiovanni".
BTW: It appears as if the Lakers might be getting Ron Artest after all, though I have to think it would cost them more than just Devean George.
http://www.probasketballnews.com/pbnnews_1229.html
On another note, msnbc.com, in discussing the Manny/Matt for Miggy deal, makes this argument: "The Orioles' near agreement with 36-year-old outfielder Jeromy Burnitz could also scuttle the deal because Baltimore won't have as big a need for Ramirez."
Uh, I guess . . .
Actually, I just haven't found a clever way to do it yet.
Jimmy Smits
Mykelti Williamson
Ed O'Neill
Dennis Farina
Bruce Willis
Eric Bogosian
Glenn Frey
Richard Jenkins
Pam Grier
John Turturro
Ving Rhames
Luis Guzmán
Anthony Heald
Penn Jillette
Gene Simmons
Little Richard
Bruce McGill
David Strathairn
Nathan Lane
James Remar
Frankie Valli
Miles Davis
Dean Stockwell
Bob Balaban
Patti D'Arbanville
Iman
G. Gordon Liddy
Phil Collins
Emo Philips
Kyra Sedgwick
Ted Nugent
Leonard Cohen
Harvey Fierstein
Bernard King
Michael Richards
Bill Russell
Roberto Durán
Frank Zappa
Michael Bay
Bianca Jagger
Byrne Piven
Richard Belzer
Tommy Chong
Gary Cole
Lee Iacocca
John Leguizamo
Liam Neeson
Laurence Fishburne
Ron Perlman
Charles S. Dutton
John Spencer
Steve Buscemi
Willie Nelson
Stanley Tucci
Bill Paxton
Wesley Snipes
Don King
Chris Elliott
Robert Pastorelli
Helena Bonham Carter
Brad Dourif
Vincent D'Onofrio
Annette Bening
Viggo Mortensen
Lou Diamond Phillips
Melanie Griffith
George Takei
Ian McShane
Benicio Del Toro
Philip Baker Hall
Brian Dennehy
Ben Stiller
Paul Guilfoyle
Kelly Lynch
Penelope Ann Miller
Isaac Hayes
Chris Rock
Sheena Easton
R. Lee Ermey
Lori Petty
Harry Shearer
Oliver Platt
Dylan Baker
Frank Stallone
Michael Wincott
Chris Cooper
Julia Roberts
Tony Sirico
Michael Chiklis
25 - Probably George and Odom, thought it's possible it could be George, Kwame, and every other scrub on the team to make the salaries fit.
I'd be kinda surprised if Phil has given up on Odom already.
http://www.yard-work.org/?p=457
I'm not sure Kobe and anyone are complementary.
I think the Lakers originally thought Lamar Odom was going to be their Scottie Pippen. But he's more of a Toni Kukoc.
Maybe Artest can be that Pippen type to run along Kobe.
I also read the Lakers might be getting Jalen Rose in the deal too. Kobe, Rose, Artest at the 1,2,3 would be very good.
40 - Artest and Rose both have experience with the triangle from their days in Chicago. Tim Floyd ran the offense after Phil left per the Jerry's (Krause and Reinsdorf's) orders.
Mihm does a good Luc Longley.
Kwame is no Rodman.
Artest does a good Scottie Pippen.
Kobe does a good Michael Jordan
Rose does a good Ron Harper.
Smush is no Kerr/Paxson.
Cook does a good Bill Wennington.
Odom does a good Toni Kukoc.
So both of the major local teams (Dodgers and Lakers, sorry Clippers) are holding out for 2007. Wake me in 12-18 months.
Exactly. I kinda wish a team like Oregon would decline the bowl bid after getting shafted. Accepting the bid (and the shaft) only perpetuates the system. And like you said, the players can't help but feel a let down in this situation.
Odom if we can keep him, great, but if not then its not that big of a loss. The man isnt even willing to shoot more than 10 times a game.
Kobe bashing is easy, but he has no team around him. The guys just sit there and hope Kobe will do it. Lamar included. Jalen and Artest won't. They are tough players. And yep, it does put us in a much better place cap wise heading into 07 season
The guys just sit there and hope Kobe will do it.
I'm not sure about this. Are you suggesting Kobe actually wants other players to take shots, glory, fame, etc. away from him? It's not as if Kobe is looking to give the ball up all the time and only shooting because no one else will.
I think Kobe's behavior with Shaq was a pretty good indicator that he would rather be the star on a losing team than share the limelight on a winning team.
Also, how Cal did last year against Texas Tech shouldn't really affect how Oregon plays against Oklahoma.
51. I'm not saying that what happened last year should affect what happens this year, but it should at least play a part in people's expectations.
There is also the matter of Oklahoma having to be able to play good enough defense to slow down Oregon. Not many teams have outside of USC.
Like D4P mentioned earlier, he leads the team in assists and rebounds. He leads the team in assists because he is a great ball-handler, he has great court vision, and he is unselfish. He leads the team in rebounds because he hustles, he knows how to get good position, and because of his height. Lamar also plays good defense. I don't think lazy would be a good way to describe him.
Both Odom and Phil talk about how the media and fans should get off his back because what he does is what the team needs from him. In fact, Phil got mad when Lamar said that he was going to score more points when reporters kept asking him about his scoring.
I perceive a player who rebounds, blocks shots, and plays good defense as one that hustles because that takes hard work and effort (atleast it does for me when I play). When a player doesn't take many shots I see him as a team player, not a lazy one.
Look, Oregon is the better team, but they are disapointed college kids, while Oklahoma is a young team that has improved over the course of the season and if I still gambled on college football I wouldn't go near this game because of that huge psychological factor.
For all you NewsRadio fans (I'm one of them)...
http://tinyurl.com/cvcko
and
http://tinyurl.com/8opvb
Keep in mind that Oklahoma sees Texas Tech's offense a lot, so they are able to adjust to it. But Oregon has a variety of offensive weapons while Oklahoma has Adrian Peterson.
Oregon has a typical Pac-10 defense.
Oregon has a typical Pac-10 defense.
Yeah, it seems that Pac-10 teams (or at least Oregon) have found it much easier to attract high-quality offensive talent than defensive. Oregon has always had good QBs, RBs, and WRs, but always gets stuck with undersized DLs and LBs and 5'8" CBs that can't cover anyone.
There's also the psychological factor for Oregon of feeling like they have much more to lose than to gain. Beating an unranked 7-4 team doesn't really mean much. Oklahoma, on the other hand, clearly has much more to gain than to lose.
Ryne Sandberg
http://tinyurl.com/cv7uj
"However, in recent days, rookie GM Josh Byrnes has improved an already astounding lot of young talent; and as a result, the D-backs are uniquely coiled (snake metaphor!) for a run of dominance in the otherwise lackluster NL West."
I walked by the old Astro ticket office at the Astrodome last Saturday on my way to a Texans game, and the image that came to my mind was of a tremendous, high-arcing home run to right-center off the bat of a skinny Darryl Strawberry in his prime.
Fortunately, they still have no rotation, so the Dodgers should be safe for one more year.
Has anyone else heard any more about that Artest->LAL thing aside from probasketballnews.com article? The day the Lakers give up Devean and change for the scariest defender in recent history and a decent shooter is the day I'll call Kupchak a decent GM.
That deal is financially impossible. The Lakers would have to give up Odom if they got both Artest and Rose. Artest will be a Nugget or a Clipper. I do not know why Laker fans think we have a chance. We have nothing to offer that will make the deal work. Kupchak will not trade Odom just for Artest and the salaries do not match as well.
#1. A post-roids and Older Luis Gonzalez.
#2. Subtract Troy Glaus 37HR's.
#3. Tony Clark will go back to being Tony Clark.
Isnt their lineup significantly worse? And dont they need to score runs with that bad bullpen and starting staff?
LaRoche, Guzman, Billingsley, Martin, Ethier. I know that their prospects, Drew in particular, may hit better, but the Dodgers will have a deeper pitching staff.
What are they?
Where did you hear that? If true, that would lend credence to the speculation that Odom might be on his way out. However, would trading Odom for Artest really result in a net gain in chemistry and character?
Kwame + George + Slava + McKie
Croshere + Artest+ anthony johnson
Jalen Rose
rose and artest to the lakers.
kwame, george and slava to the pacers.
croshere, mckie and johnson to the raptors.
i assume our starting 5 would be
rose
kobe
artest
odom
mihm
??
wells is the golden calf.
Kwame, George, Slava, and McKie for Artest and Rose would be a pretty good deal for the Lakers. However, who would take Kwame's place as PF/backup C? Mihm is a foul-magnet and needs a competent backup.
i guess it would mean bynum and turiaf get thrown into the fire early.
However, this year's Holiday Bowl has little in common with last year's. This has been a defensive game. I'm shocked to see a Pac-10 team in a 17-14 game.
How can the Pac-10 be over-rated when its "second team" is ranked 6th in the BCS and yet still gets stuck in the Holiday Bowl?
I guess Steve is a good guy. But is he really better than us?
The real no-win situation is the Sun Bowl tomorrow, I've seen almost every Northwestern game this year and they are not a good team, they lose that game it really appears that the Pac-10 is as deserving the the title "Big 1" as the Big 12. Since it appears that my sons have finally fallen back asleep, I'll bid you goodnight.
Yes, I laugh.
Griddle 71
Dodger Thoughts 54
Sheesh, if UCLA couldn't beat this Stanford team at Pauley, I would be greatly disturbed.
Unless they meet in the NCAA or the NIT.
USC 58
SC 9 game winning streak toast
Unlikely that...
The Korean kid would start if Ben Howland didn't have a Jordan Farmar fixation.
UCLA has a lot of young talent. Afflalo is going to be a great player but with Fey and Hollins in the middle UCLA can't get past the sweet 16 (and may not get that far).
Footnote: Centerpeice of Herrick's URI program? Odom
Wagner is not a great team, but they will almost definitely be in the NCAA tournament. That is a lot more than you can say for Stanford right now (although if Hernandez and Grunfield get on track they could turn it around).
UCLA is a very good team and now that Josh Shipp is back they will only get better. Guard play is the most important thing in basketball and UCLA might have the best backcourt in the country.
And Howland is no Jim Tracy.
Herrick was fired at UCLA for turning in phoney expense reports, but that was more of a convenient excuse for Pete Dalis to fire him. Dalis felt Harrick was an NCAA probation violation waiting to happen. And the UCLA alums never quite took to Harrick because he wasn't all that polished of a person.
Los Angeles Police Dept. Lt. Paul Vernon said the Dodgers have reported a "theft from the organization" and said detectives would meet with team officials after the relevant executives return from the holidays.
The LAPD does not know what specific items were taken, he said
Can it please be Repko that was stolen? Actually, it was some documents pertaining to the NFL proposal. Supposedly, the proposal was a 65,000 seat stadium at $600 mil
"Sam Gilbert, come to the white courtesy phone. Mr. Sam Gilbert, you are needed. Thank you."
http://tinyurl.com/73yae
McCourt, you reap what you sow. If you fire people left and right, you find your most embarassing memos showing up in the newspapers. And if you whore after public adulation (a.k.a. "psychic benefits"), you become both a laughing stock and a pariah.
This is going to be an extremely expensive mistake for McCourt. Just to get back to mere acceptability, he'll have to throw around massive campaign contributions, not just to Villaraigosa and Yaroslavsky, but every judge, every Water Replenishment Board candidate, and every out-of-state district attorney nominee for whom these powerful politicans want to do favors. He'll have to donate to all their favorite charities, and give away massive blocks of tickets to every youth group, private school and community gang diversion program in 83 cities. If Gov. Schwarzenegger wants to build a new rehabilitation center and name it after Maria Shriver, McCourt will be tapped to help pay for it, and get no credit.
And even after he does all that, the chances of McCourt ever owning an LA football franchise rank lower than anyone else in California, save maybe for Charles Manson. He is screwed.
One of the best movie monologues of the past 15 years or so is John's from "Watch It" where he talks about why women don't like "nice guys". Laugh out loud funny, all time classic!
Thanks again Jon.
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