Eric Gagne used to emerge from the bullpen like Darth Vader swinging a dental drill.
Even the dorky safety goggles hinted at impending doom. A blowtorch four-seamer. The change-up that dropped like a bowling ball off a picnic table. Get a whiff of that, with three outs to go in the bottom of the ninth. Whiff-whiff-whiff ...
The party-sized reliever has “reinvented himself,” as they like to say in this town. Now he’s a movie producer and a bit actor … even on occasion, a professional pitcher.
Welcome to the jungle, circa 2016.
You’ll spot Gagne playing a bartender in the new Josh Duhamel biopic on Bill “Spaceman” Lee, a love-of-the-game movie he helped finance.