Dr. Anthony Fauci made headlines for his terrible first pitch (insert all your “juuust a bit outside!” jokes here) last week before the Washington Nationals and New York Yankees started the 2020 MLB season, but he’s got an automatic good excuse baked in, since he’s been busy helping fight a global pandemic.
But he still has a good explanation beyond that, as he told the Wall Street Journal.
Fauci says two nights before he was scheduled to toss the first pitch, he went to a local school to throw for the first time in “decades,” which is pretty wild.
When he awoke, however?
“My arm was hanging down around my shoes,” he told the publication’s Ben Cohen. And when he made the pitch, he was still in pain. There was also this:
“He thought he’d practiced from 60 feet and 6 inches — until he got to the mound an realized he must have miscalculated.
Fauci threw from about 50 feet. The ball made it 40 feet,
“When I saw (the catcher) was so far away, I said I better try to throw a bullet,” Fauci said. “And that was a mistake.”
It happens! Just ask a bunch of other famous people.
The fun news is that a card made by Topps to commemorate his first pitch set an all-time record with the company — in 24 hours, the $9.99 card sold 51,512 copies:
NEW. RECORD. đź’Ą
Dr. Anthony Fauci's #ToppsNOW card sets an all-time high print run record, clocking in at 51,512 cards! pic.twitter.com/sbZtdVX6MC
— Topps (@Topps) July 27, 2020
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