If there’s one thing that Jerry Seinfeld loved more on Seinfeld than torturing himself, it was baseball. Both a Mets hat and a Yankees hat were displayed prominently in his apartment, he’s often found watching the game, he had an insightful conversation about the Mets with a nude guy on a subway once, and his best friend worked for the Yankees. The comedian’s fandom also extends to real life where he is a devout Mets fan — an affection that he clearly gave service to while running a TV show, because there were a lot of cameos and baseball mentions over the course of Seinfeld’s nine-season run. So many that it seemed logical to rank them today, which is former Seinfeld guest star Keith Hernandez’s 63rd birthday.

Derek Jeter and Bernie Williams — “The Abstinence”

Basically, not having sex turns George into the Bradley Cooper character in Limitless, so he puts on a master class in hitting for Yankees’ All-Stars Bernie Williams and Derek Jeter — who mostly just stand there and watch. Luckily, Jeter improved a little over time and eventually had a pretty hilarious cameo beside Will Ferrell in The Other Guys, but it wasn’t good enough to erase the memory of this strikeout.

Joe DiMaggio — “The Note”

The unflappable and graceful Joe DiMaggio would have never visited a dinky donut shop in real life, but on Seinfeld, Kramer allegedly stumbles upon him and fails to get his attention. Not a valuable moment, just a wonderfully strange aside.



Buck Showalter — “The Chaperone”

The now-manager of the Baltimore Orioles, Buck Showalter didn’t shy away from the spotlight when he wore pinstripes as the Yankees manager from 1992 to 1995, appearing on Late Night with David Letterman and on one episode of Seinfeld where he allowed himself to be persuaded to let the team switch from polyester to cotton uniforms.

Phil Rizzuto — “The Pothole”

Phil Rizzuto’s signature voice got squeezed into George’s keychain, and then said keychain fell into a pothole and got covered up by a road crew. Not a true Rizzuto appearance, but if you grew up in the New York/New Jersey area listening to Rizzuto call Yankee games in the ’60s, ’70s, ’80s, or ’90s, that voice was the very essence of the man, and his “Holy Cow” catchphrase was the essence of that essence. So, this counts. Fight me.



Mickey Mantle — “The Visa”

Mantle never appeared in an episode of Seinfeld, but he was mentioned in five episodes. Mantle’s most prominent mentions were in “The Implant” when Jerry equates finding out that his girlfriend has fake breasts to finding out that Mantle corked his bat, and “The Visa,” where there is an unseen backstory that Kramer describes involving a brawl at Yankees’ fantasy camp in Florida and a scene at his restaurant in the city.

Roger McDowell — “The Boyfriend”

Screwball relief pitcher Roger McDowell had a relatively small role in his one episode on Seinfeld, but it was crucial to the majesty of Jerry’s reenactment of the spitting incident that soured Kramer and Newman against Keith Hernandez. Was McDowell the second spitter on the gravely road? Keith Hernandez and the immutable laws of physics seem to think so.

Paul O’Neill — “The Wink”