Okay, okay, John Wall is worse at throwing a baseball 60 feet 6 inches than most suburban 7 year olds. That said, he could still jump over your that 7 year old's entire unathletic family lined up end to end while making more than that same dumb unathletic family will make in a lifetime. Why are we obsessed with the fact that some athletes aren't good at the sports they don't ever play? Is it that surprising? Spoiler Alert!!!!!!! Lebron James is bad at tennis. Most girls high school players could beat him. Charles Oakley was a terrible placekicker and Detlef Schrempf's 100m IM time is less than world class. They already feel bad enough about it, quit being a dick and throwing it in their faces.
John is most definitely terrible at using his upper appendages to hurl a baseball 20 yards, but is he the worst ceremonial first pitcher of all-time? And about that, is there an act similar to the ceremonial first pitch in another other sport? Does Y.A. Tittle come out before a Giants / Eagles game and hit Hakeem Nicks on a post? Does Kareem show up high to a Lakers - T. Wolves tip and shoot a few ceremonial sky-hooks over the outstretched shot blocking arm of Darko Milicic? God I wish he did. The closest thing to the ceremonial first pitch in other sports is when Arnold Palmer duck hooks that ceremonial Masters' tee shot into the 13 year old orbital bone of a gallery member who until that tee shot was very happy to be missing a day of 8th grade but now sorely regrets missing algebra.
Fear not John, you are not the most pathetic of all the pathetic throwers who have littered major league mounds in recent years. Here's a look at the "Worse than Wall" club.
10. Mariah Carey - Your first pitch would look terrible too if everything you did for the rest of your life was compared to the Butterfly album.
9. Charlie Crist - Former Governer of Florida
8. Charlie Brown - Thank god Snoopy had to be put down due to heart worms a couple years back. This would have broke his worm ridden heart.
7. Polish Dude - How many Pollock's does it take to throw a ball to home plate? One to throw the ball and three more to wonder how a thrown ball can travel less than four feet after a full wind-up and throw.
6. Tyrannosaurus Rex - One of the hundreds of reasons I like velociraptors more.
5. Lee Jun Hyun - Only slightly less feminine than Byung-Hyun Kim's delivery, and much, much more effective. (Full disclosure: This is actually a nice pitch. I figured some attractiveness wouldn't hurt this post, which is why I also included the t-rex)
4. El Presidente
3. Mark Mallory - Mayor Of Cinncinnati - Eric Davis was only slightly more impressed with the grade A street meat that other former Cincinnati mayor Jerry Springer purchased with that personal check.
2. Gary Dell'Abate - On pure throwing ability, you can put Baba Booey at the absolute bottom of the evolutionary ladder, next to any animal without a opposable thumbs and with prehensile tails.
1. A very dumb looking New York fan - Every time a Yankees fan embarrasses himself an orphaned puppy finds a home and Lou Holtz learns how to properly pronounce one more word starting with "Sh."
If this post doesn't make John Wall feel better. I don't know what will.
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