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    10 Questions for Keith Hernandez

    Ken Hoffman tees up Keith Hernandez on kissing Elaine on Seinfeld and his big Houston visit

    Ken Hoffman
    Feb 7, 2020 | 8:30 am
    Keith Hernandez Jerry Seinfeld
    Keith Hernandez will forever be remembered for his appearance on a Seinfeld episode.
    Photo by Jim McIsaac/Getty Images

    Keith Hernandez batted .294 over his 18-year Major League Baseball career. He shared the National League MVP Award in 1979, starred on two World Series champions, played in five All-Star games, won a batting title, 11 Gold Glove Awards in 11 consecutive seasons, holds the record for game-winning RBI, was named to the New York Mets all-time greatest team and is considered the best-fielding first baseman ever.

    Wow! What an amazing career. Hernandez will be in Houston this weekend for Tristar Sports’ 34th annual Sports Memorabilia and Autograph Show at NRG Arena. Other sports heroes appearing for autograph sessions are Joe Montana, Lance McCullers, Randy Johnson, Ryne Sandberg, Yuli Gurriel, Brooks Robinson, and dozens more.Visit the official site for celebrities, tickets, and times.

    I’d love to talk baseball with you, Keith Hernandez but I’ve got my priorities straight: Tell me about the episode of Seinfeld where Kramer and Newman accused you of spitting on them after a Mets game and you got to kiss Elaine! TV Guide ranked Seinfeld the “Greatest Show in Television History” and the two-part episode with Hernandez, titled “The Boyfriend,” the greatest episode of the greatest show. Even bigger wow!

    CultureMap: What’s tougher, facing a Nolan Ryan fastball or not laughing doing a scene with George Costanza on Seinfeld?

    Keith Hernandez: For me, the Seinfeld episode. But the funniest guy was Newman. It was hardest to keep a straight face when Newman and Kramer walked into Jerry’s apartment and saw that I was there. They brought up the game against Philadelphia where I made an error and cost the Mets the game and ruined their day and accused me of spitting on them.

    CM: How did you get the role on Seinfeld? Did you call them or did they call you?

    KH: It was 1991, the year after I retired from baseball. Ironically, they went through my last baseball agent, who wasn’t under my employ anymore. It was Scott Boras. They called him in Los Angeles and he called me and said, ‘Do you want to do this sitcom called Seinfeld?’

    I was a baseball player and we play mostly night games, so I never watched prime time television. I still don’t. (Hernandez is a broadcaster for the Mets.) I didn’t know what the Seinfeld show was. Scott Boras said they just wanted me for a guest shot. And that’s how the ball got rolling. (The story goes, if Hernandez had said no, Seinfeld producers were going to ask Mets catcher Gary Carter.)

    CM: Like most Seinfeld fans, I’ve seen every episode, oh, about 20 times and can practically recite the scripts by heart. Seinfeld seems to air on every station around the clock now. How many times have you seen your episode?

    KH: I do not watch it. I’ve seen it twice, once when it first aired in 1992 and one other time. I just get embarrassed. I think I did OK, but it’s embarrassing to watch yourself. I had a ton of lines and I did memorize them and I didn’t screw up.” (Hernandez still receives $3,000 in royalties each year for his Seinfeld appearance.)

    CM: What were you doing the year after you retired from baseball?

    KH: I was doing nothing. I had back surgery and I was recovering from that. That’s why I retired at 37. It took me a year to recover. I wasn’t in a wheelchair, but I was working my way back physically from a serious operation.

    CM: When you were a kid, did you ever imagine that people would stand in line for your autograph or take a photo with you?

    KH: Absolutely not. I grew up in California in the era of the San Francisco Giants and Willie Mays and Willie McCovey and Juan Marichal. If they had sold baseball jerseys in my day like they do today, I would have had a Mickey Mantle jersey, number 7, on my back. Mickey Mantle was my idol. I happen to share a birthday with him. I certainly would have badgered my dad to take me to an autograph show like this weekend in Houston.

    CM: When they sent you the script for the Seinfeld episode, could you envision how funny the show would be, or was it just words on a page?

    KH: Just a lot of words and pages. I saw how many lines I had and immediately went into panic mode. During my playing days in New York, I had become friends with the actress Marsha Mason (The Goodbye Girl). I told her that I was petrified, that I was getting in over my head.

    This was my first acting experience. She told me how to memorize lines. I read that script over and over until I was well versed with my lines. I was glad I did. I spent the whole week in Los Angeles doing the show. People only see the final product, but it starts Monday morning with a 7 o’clock call. All the principles and writers were there, and we went over the script, everybody contributing to make it better. I was just listening. On Wednesday they took away our scripts and we had to do a rehearsal. We did the final shoot on Saturday. I just thought that I better not screw up. It was a wonderful experience, but it was really, really stressful.

    CM: When you were done shooting, did you have any idea that the episode would be a TV classic?

    KH: I knew it was a very clever show, so well written. It was soon after the Kevin Costner film about the assassination of President Kennedy, and Seinfeld did a perfect parody of that. Larry David told me that Seinfeld didn’t really take off its first year, and they were going to run my episode during sweeps week in February of 1992.

    He thought the show was a winner and wanted to make a splash with my episode. They wrote extra scenes to make it a two-part episode. Larry said the episode depended on me, and that I did fine. I’m not saying the show took off because of me, though. It took off because of the brilliance of the script. I feel like I barely passed the grade, I was just acceptable enough.

    CM: Can you believe that you did that Seinfeld episode almost 30 years ago?

    KH: Well, I’m looking at a Cardinals 1982 championship book and that’s almost 40 years ago. Time flies.

    CM: When people meet you, is it a Seinfeld or baseball moment for them?

    KH:Seinfeld. Baseball reaches people who are sports-minded in our society. Seinfeld reaches the whole country. When people see me, they laugh and say things from the episode like ‘Hey, pretty boy,’ or ‘can I help you move?’ or ‘what was it like kissing Elaine?’ or ‘and you want to be my latex salesman?’ or ‘I’m Keith Hernandez’ I get that a lot.

    ---

    Meet Keith Hernandez and other celebrities at the Tristar Sports’ 34th annual Sports Memorabilia and Autograph Show. Show runs through Sunday, February 9 at NRG Arena (1 NRG Pkwy).

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    game, set, zina.

    Best of Ken Hoffman: Interviewing Houston's greatest tennis icon

    Ken Hoffman
    Aug 29, 2024 | 12:30 pm
    Zina Garrison, tennis player
    ITATennis
    Garrison, a tennis legend, is now the tennis director of Houston Parks and Recreation.

    Editor's note: After the sudden death of beloved columnist Ken Hoffman on July 14, CultureMap is republishing some of our favorite "Hoffman's Houston" columns. In honor of the U.S. Open, here's Ken's interview with Houston tennis legend Zina Garrison; it was originally published on June 27, 2022.

    As a child, Zina Garrison learned how to hit a tennis ball on the public courts at MacGregor Park during the 1970s and became, simply, the most accomplished player ever from Houston.

    She developed into a Grand Slam champion, a Top 5 ranking in the world, Wimbledon finalist in 1990 with 20 tournament titles, Federation Cup captain, and Olympic gold medal winner and later Olympic coach.

    Now Garrison is back where she started, only this time she’s devoted to making Houston a great place to learn and play tennis … again. Like she did.

    “I am now the tennis director of Houston Parks and Recreation,” Garrison tells me. “I’m over all the public tennis programs and facilities. The job came open recently and I applied for it.”

    Wait... she’s the greatest champion this city has ever produced — and she had to apply for that job?

    “To be honest, I was more interested in the benefits than the money. As you get older, you start thinking differently,” she shares.

    Unlike the major sports leagues in America, tennis doesn’t provide any healthcare insurance or assistance once a player, even a legend, retires.

    “They’re working on it,” Garrison, 58, notes. “But as of now, nothing.”

    Garrison said her first priority as Houston’s tennis director is to repair the public courts.

    “I want to bring the public tennis facilities up to where I’d be proud, where everybody would be proud, to bring people to use our courts. There are cracks in the courts. Nothing’s really been done in the last 20 or maybe 30 years,” she says.

    “I’ve traveled to Florida and some other places and they have really nice public courts. Tennis in Houston was really thriving for a while and we had nice courts and people could play in the parks. We had junior programs. We flourished. That’s my main goal.”

    While I had Garrison on the phone, I served up some questions:

    CultureMap: Wimbledon is on. You’re familiar with that tournament, right? Who are your picks to win the men’s side and women’s side?

    Zina Garrison: Yes, I’m familiar with Wimbledon. I have my alarm set for the early morning so I can watch. I have a weird pick, a more personal pick, for the men.

    I would love to see Rafael Nadal keep going on, but it’s going to be tough for him. The guy from Italy, Matteo Berrettini, I watched him play a couple of weeks ago and I think he’s going to surprise a lot of people. And I am absolutely in love with that little guy, Carlos Alcaraz, from Spain. He’s made me watch tennis again.

    On the women’s side, I don’t think it will be Iga Swiatek. I think it’s just too hard to keep a streak like hers (35 matches in a row including the French Open title) going in today’s game. It’s really wide open. I don’t really have a pick, it’s just who comes in and plays well at the right time.

    CM: What do you think about Natela Dzalamidze, the doubles player from Russian who switched her nationality to Georgia so she could play Wimbledon, which has banned players from Russian and Belarus this year?

    ZG: I don’t like that she was able to do that. I was just on the phone with (former pro turned broadcaster) Chanda Rubin talking about what’s going on in tennis these days.

    First of all, there is the human rights stuff that’s going on in Russia and Ukraine. We have to start forcing accountability for actions. A lot of people didn’t agree with what Wimbledon did, but I think they had to take a stand.

    CM: The women’s GOAT is easy — it’s Serena. But who do you think is the men’s GOAT?

    ZG: Wow, that’s a hard one. If you had asked me earlier this year, I would have said Roger Federer because of everything he’s accomplished. But right now I’m going to have to go with Nadal. Nadal has taken tennis to a whole ‘nother level, of getting people to watch, coming out of the pandemic, where he has matches and you think he can’t come back and he’s still grinding no matter what.

    For me, he is the epitome of what we need in this world right now: Never give up but not be selfish about helping others. I know it sounds clichéd, but that’s what I’m going through right now.

    CM: When I first met you, you were painfully shy. It was hard to get an answer out of you. Now you’re a TV commentator and a regular chatterbox. What happened?

    ZG: I was an introvert but I had always been intrigued by people of wisdom. A lot of it came as I developed confidence in myself. I had always been told at a very young age, if you really knew me, I spoke a lot. If you didn’t know me, I would be quiet. I would only speak about things that I was extremely passionate about.

    As I’ve gotten older, because of my experiences. I feel like I can help people so I’m not afraid to say what I want to say.

    CM: Starting the week after Wimbledon, coaches will be allowed to communicate with men players during matches. Up to now, that’s only been allowed in the women’s game. Every other sport allows coaching. Do you think tennis should allow coaching, too?

    ZG: I don’t think coaching should be allowed. That’s one of the great things about tennis. That’s a part of the sport, that you grow and figure things out. You learn to think for yourself.

    There’s always been little signals from coaches, but now you have these full blown conversations. Another bad thing about allowing coaching is it gives the players the opportunity to blame a loss their coach. That’s not good for the sport.

    CM: You were known for wiggling your butt when receiving serve. Did you know you were doing it? Did you do that on purpose?

    ZG: It started off as kind of a joke with my coaches. They said, we need you to move your feet. I said, you mean like this?

    So, it started as a joke but I realized that it helped get my feet moving: Okay, I’m going to keep doing this.

    I’ll never forget that year after I got to the Wimbledon finals, 1990, I went over to Japan and there were 1,200 people there … and all of them started wiggling!

    CM: What was the first extravagant thing you bought for yourself when the tennis prize money started rolling in?

    ZG: It was 1982, and I bought a candy apple red Volkswagen convertible with a white top.

    CM: You were on the Biggest Loser, the show where contestants compete against each other to lose weight. Let’s just say you didn’t win. Are you happy you went on that show, or do you regret it?

    ZG: I was one of the first who had to leave the competition. (No, you were THE first.) It was an experience, but I probably shouldn’t have done it. I think I regret going on there. It wasn’t what I thought it was.

    It was reality TV and at the time I didn’t know what reality TV was .I was more ready to get out of there than anything else.

    CM: Now here’s the big question, Zina. For years, I’ve had a running disagreement with ESPN 97.5 FM morning host John Granato about which is a more demanding, tougher sport – golf or tennis?

    Granato says it’s golf, because the tournament winner has to beat every other player that week, while in tennis the winner just has to beat seven players at most. And, each week, golfers have to contend with a different course.

    But, I say it’s tennis because players have to be in top physical condition, while nearly anyone in any shape can win a golf major.

    Plus, in golf, players have a caddy helping them make decisions. In tennis, players are on their own.

    In golf, you can have a bad day on Thursday and still win the tournament. In tennis, if you have a bad day in the opening round, you’re on a plane out of there.

    In golf, it’s the player against the course. There’s no defense in golf. In tennis, there’s a human opponent trying to beat you.

    In golf, the ball is lying still. In tennis the ball is coming at you at 140 mph.

    So which is the tougher sport, golf or tennis? I’m right ... right?

    ZG: Are you serious? Who is this guy who says golf is harder? The answer is tennis and it’s not even close.

    You’re playing against someone. You’re only controlling the ball when it’s on your side of the net. You can’t control what the other player is doing. It’s almost like a boxer coming at you.

    You have to have both the physical and mental capacity to win. In golf, if you have a bad day, it’s because you’re having that bad day. There’s no opponent competing with you. So, I’m saying it’s tennis.

    CM (note to John Granato): I win. Granted, it might have been the way I asked the question. Also, Garrison is a former tennis pro.

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