It’s been nearly 20 years to the date since Seinfeld aired its series finale, and to honor the brilliantly creative show about nothing – which remains a pillar of popular culture with one-liners from the show often referenced in everyday life – we’re counting down to the May 14th anniversary in the only way we know how: sports references. The show’s nine seasons are filled with sports – probably more than you remember – so we’re breaking them all down.

“I’m Keith Hernandez.”

It’s arguably one of the greatest lines in one of the greatest sports cameos in the greatest sitcom of all time. And with that, Keith Hernandez — who had a stellar baseball career that included a World Series title with the New York Mets in 1986 — became something he never imagined: An actor.

In a conversation with For The Win this week as he promotes his new book — titled, of course, I’m Keith Hernandez — the SNY analyst revealed the week of filming took a serious toll on him, considering he’d never acted a day in his life.

(This interview has been edited and condensed.)

How did you get on the show in the first place?

I was on my second year of retirement. I had back surgery and I didn’t play in 1991 at all, I stayed home and recovered. I got a call from my agent, Scott Boras. He said, “You got an opportunity here to do a sitcom. Are you interested?” I don’t watch any primetime mainly because you play at night. So he told me, they’ll fly you to Los Angeles, you’d have to be there in a week, there are minimal lines – that’s what he said, “minimal lines.” My first reaction was, how much? They’ll pay $15,000. I said, okay I’ll take it.

Scott overnighted the script to me. I’m expecting a scene and minimal lines. I got the script and realized I had a major role. As I’m reading further, I realized I’m a guest star and the show will revolve around me. I never acted, I never took any lessons, it was the furthest thing from my mind. I was grappling with what I was going to do post-baseball. I realized I had a bunch of lines and that soliloquy about the gravely road.

Marsha Mason was a friend of mine from New York. I called her and I said, I think I’m in over my head. How do I memorize my lines? She told me learn Line 1, then Line 1, Line 2, then Line 1, Line 2, Line 3. Make sure before you go to bed, make sure you read your scenes that you’re doing the next day.

Were you the most nervous that first day on set?

I was nervous getting in the car they had for me. The first day was all the principal actors, the writers and the entire production team with the scripts and reading. There were three other writers besides Larry David and they all were reading and adding their two cents here and there, what we can improve or try. I’m just keeping my mouth shut, soaking it all in.

The second day, Tuesday, we did a run-through with the scripts, tracking, blocking and lighting, it took all day. They tinkered with the script.

Wednesday, you had no script, you had to know your lines. That’s when it became terrifying.

I realized on Wednesday this was a serious enterprise, that I’m one episode in a season and I’d better pass the grade because come Monday, they film a new episode. That added to the anxiety. I had to get over people watching me do my lines. I just decided, heck, I’m playing Keith Hernandez, so don’t try to be Marlon Brando in On the Waterfront. Play myself, how I would react in this situation? So that’s all I did. The hardest part was the memorization. I had to get that done. I was petrified most of the week, trust me.

How did you do?

The first scene with Jerry and Jason (Alexander), there were three people talking including myself. Every scene I acted in, I memorized (other actors’) lines too. I had to know everything. Ironically, the one scene that they altered the most was the first scene, the meeting in the locker room. We went before a live audience Friday night. After 5 o’clock, we did the run through in front of NBC suits, so we had to run through in front of them. I didn’t make any mistakes. Then at 7, we did it front of the audience.

They had around 200, 300 people there, it seemed like 1,000. It was like being on Broadway. Larry came up to me and said, “Now, we’ve got a really good show, we think it’s funny, we don’t want to do it with laugh tracks when we come in tomorrow and do it in studio. So try to get it right because I think we’ll get good reaction with natural laughs from the audience.” Well that it made it more pressure-packed. At the last minute, they made a minor alteration to the opening scene. I had known that scene by rote. Of course, I went in the first scene and botched it. We started from scratch again and I got it.

Jerry comes up to me and said, “What are you nervous for? You hit in front of 55,000 people! There are 200 people here!”

I said, “But I don’t have to memorize lines.” The rest of the whole thing went well, I didn’t make any mistakes.

When it was over, it was like the weight of the world went off my shoulders. We did it over the next day in studio, and I wasn’t nervous in the least. I did it with no mistakes.

I went home that night, I had a flight on Sunday and I called and said change it to next Sunday. I’m spent. I got a room at the Shutters on the Beach in Santa Monica and spent a week there winding down from all the nerves I had all week.

On the way home on the flight, my back blew out, probably from tension. It went into severe spasm, I was laid up for 3 weeks until it calmed down. Looking back, I remember what a wonderful experience it was and what a lucky man I was because I was a part of an iconic sitcom in television history.

Was it true you had to do the Elaine kissing scene 8 times?

Julia (Louis-Dreyfus) was pregnant with her first child then. Her husband was on the set all the time, he was a great guy, but they did have a camera on the hood, on the trunk and on both passenger and driver’s side. So they had to do four different times. It’s never one take, so it was 8 to 10 takes. There was nothing romantic. I brought gum just for the purposes, I didn’t want to have bad breath. I got through it.

Any other anecdotes?

When Newman (Wayne Knight) had his big scene in Jerry’s apartment where he got all frazzled, the door he exited on, I was standing right by it, behind the door. I wanted to listen to it, it was a funny scene. When he came out and stormed out and opened the door, he was so into the moment and the character in that scene, that he was almost like frothing at the mouth. He looked right at me and we both laughed.

Were you bothered by the “I’m Keith Hernandez” ethos?

I didn’t at all. I thought, it’s comedy, it’s not reality and I knew what they were doing, me a big hotshot ball player, can we say a bon vivant? I totally understood. The show goes on and I thought it was funny, I thought the line was great. It’s become iconic, it’s the name of my book!

Did you know it would be the title?

When the writer and (publisher) Little, Brown and my literary agent got together, I said, there’s one name for the book. I have people come up to me at the airport and ask if they can help me move, what’s it like to kiss Elaine. It happens all the time.

How many times a day to people make Seinfeld references to you?

It goes in streaks. I can go a whole day without anyone knowing who I am. Then when it rains it pours. It’s either all or nothing and usually when I’m traveling at airports. Recently with the new popularity of the Twitter handle, it’s increased. They ask about Seinfeld but now they ask questions about Hadji (the cat) too.

Have you watched the episodes?

I haven’t watched recently. It’s embarrassing for me to watch. Larry David told me years later, “Look we knew we had a great show, it was revolving around you. Our first two seasons, our ratings weren’t that great. The show hadn’t caught on and we felt this episode with you — we wanted to use it in sweeps week — would attract attention and get it going.”

I have a hard time watching it.

Are you still making $3,000 a year in residuals?

On or around that. It’s the gift that keeps giving.

What does it mean to you being part of pop culture and baseball culture like this?

I don’t think of it as pop and baseball culture. I think of it as a very popular show and episode I was in and there are a lot of people who never saw me play. A younger generation knows me. Baseball reaches a certain segment of society, Seinfeld reached the entire nation. It gave me a second life.

I think it made everything possible what’s going on today, it was a great springboard for me. And I’m forever grateful to Larry David and Jerry for giving me the opportunity. From an everyday life standpoint, I’m just a kid who grew up with a fireman father in northern California and here I am living in New York and playing in New York and in an iconic episode on national TV. How lucky am I?

Read more about Seinfeld Week on FTW!