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Mets give 50 Cent a chance to redeem himself after worst-ever first pitch

Liz Roscher
Staff writer

What were you doing on May 27, 2014? It was almost four years ago, so you probably don’t remember. But that’s the day that history was made at Citi Field. Because on May 27, 2014, rapper and actor 50 Cent threw out the worst first pitch in baseball history.

That’s a tough thing to live down. 50 Cent isn’t a professional athlete, but he is a human man with functioning arms and legs. It’s hard to imagine how a first pitch could have gone so very wrong.

But now he’s getting a chance to redeem himself. The New York Mets are giving 50 Cent, whose real name is Curtis Jackson, another shot at throwing out the first pitch.

So how did this happen? Why are the Mets suddenly interested in giving the worst first-pitch-thrower another moment on the mound? It all started on Monday, when Jackson gave an interview to Newsday’s Neil Best. Jackson is promoting his new movie “Den of Thieves,” but had time to talk about his ill-fated pitch. And talk is what he did — 50 Cent gave some amazing quotes about his experience during and since that legendary moment.

First off, he knows it’s ridiculous and he knows that people are going to be talking about it forever.

“Listen, no one warned me,” the rapper/actor/businessman from Queens said. “No one said: ‘Risk versus reward!’ I would have kept my [expletive] in the stands. This is never going away.”

He was completely surprised at how the video caught on fire, and how he looked in the video.

“I had no idea that throwing a bad pitch would be so big. It was coming across CNN! ESPN, CNN, I was like, whoa, not the way I want things out here at the moment when I’m getting ready to run this music and I’m on CNN and it looks like my arm’s broken. I’m like, ‘What the [expletive] happened to me?’ ”

50 Cent will get a chance to throw out a better first pitch. (AP Photo)
50 Cent will get a chance to throw out a better first pitch. (AP Photo)

Jackson has some idea what happened to him. Even though he practiced (yes, he practiced!), the moment got the better of him.

“I’m like, this is what happens when the fanfare and the energy of the people is involved and you start trying to get fancy and try to throw the ball harder than you have to,” he said. “It just was the worst pitch ever . . . I had pitched before. I rehearsed. I practiced. I threw the ball a little bit.

“I was throwing like, ‘Oh, man, I’m about to throw a strike, a hundred miles an hour.’ But that [expletive] damn near killed a cameraman!”

Here’s where it gets interesting. He wants another chance to show he has the ability to throw a ball forward and toward a target, instead of weirdly out to the left and completely off the mark. Not just to show he can do it, but so people maybe stop ribbing him for his disastrous first attempt.

“I have to redeem myself at some point,” he said. “Maybe if I get out there and throw a really good pitch they’ll let me go a little bit.”

According to Newsday, Jackson has been invited by several teams to do another first pitch (Mets included), but he hasn’t taken any of them up on their offer. He’s apparently waiting for a bigger stage for his redemption, like the World Series. But with MLB and the Mets going public with their campaign to get 50 Cent back onto a mound, he might just change his mind.

And he should change his mind, because the story practically writes itself! 50 Cent, the thrower of the worst first pitch in baseball history, strides to the mound with the sound of thousands of screaming fans in his ears. He takes the ball, rears back, and throws a perfect first pitch. Or maybe he throws the worst first pitch in baseball history, part two. Either way, this clearly has to happen.

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Liz Roscher is a writer for Big League Stew on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email her at lizroscher@yahoo.com or follow her on twitter! Follow @lizroscher