Machine Gun Kelly does not have a Major League career to fall back on if his music career takes a turn for the worse.
The rapper, 34, threw out the first pitch at Progressive Field in Cleveland on Tuesday, August 13, before the Guardians took on the Chicago Cubs in a rematch of the 2016 World Series. Kelly made sure it did not go as expected.
Rather than standing on the mound and lightly tossing the ball to home plate, as thousands have done before him, Kelly had other ideas. Wearing a red custom “MGK” Guardians jersey, he peered in for a sign from his catcher, doing an admittedly solid impression of a Major League pitcher. His windup began normally as well, with the righty bringing the ball up over his head and kicking his leg.
Then he stopped. Kelly didn’t throw the pitch toward his catcher. Instead, he sprinted toward the third base line and fired the ball into the crowd, ensuring one unsuspecting fan would go home with a souvenir. Optimistically, the pitch was only a few dozen feet outside to a left-handed batter.
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Kelly is a Houston native who began his music career in Cleveland. He attended the Guardians game on Tuesday (a 2-1 Cleveland win) as part of the team’s “MGK Day” promotion. The Guardians gave a custom bag of coffee from Kelly’s 27 Club Coffee to the first 10,000 guests in attendance.
It would be unfair to place Kelly’s intentionally bad pitch in the pantheon of bad first pitches, headlined by 50 Cent’s infamous toss to an unsuspecting camera man at Citi Field in 2014. Dr. Anthony Fauci’s first pitch of the COVID-shortened 2020 season wasn’t much better. That one was nearly as far outside as 50 Cent’s, but bounced on the grass between the mound and home plate before rolling away.
Not even athletes are immune from awful first pitches. Michael Jordan, who played Minor League Baseball during his first retirement from the NBA, threw out the first pitch at a Chicago Cubs game in 1998. Wearing a Sammy Sosa jersey, he threw the ball so far over Sosa’s head that the outfielder leapt from his crouched position behind the plate and, even with his glove arm outstretched, still couldn’t haul it in.
Kelly’s pitch missed by a lot as well, but at least it was a purposeful pitch for the people. It can’t, however, touch the effort Team USA gymnast Simone Biles made before Game 2 of the 2019 World Series. Wearing a Houston Astros jersey and jeans, she nailed a backflip twist before landing on two feet and firing a strike to home plate.
Kelly wasn’t the only celebrity to throw out a first pitch on Tuesday night. College basketball superstar Paige Bueckers returned to her home state of Minnesota to toss the first ball at Target Field before the Twins trounced the Kansas City Royals, 13-3.
