To be honest, he was going to be hanging out that summer anyway.

February 16, 2015 1:03 PM

If you didn’t know better, you wouldn’t believe it all happened in the space of about five weeks in the summer of 1978. But it did happen. In those five weeks, Bill Murray played professional baseball and established himself as a bona fide movie star and the Grays Harbor Loggers – representing the twin cities of Aberdeen and Hoquiam, Washington – posted the best winning percentage in America and won the Harbor’s only professional sports championship in living memory.
posted by Chrysostom (11 comments total)

He's beyond larger than life, at this point.
posted by ocherdraco at 2:09 PM on February 16, 2015

I've already used the "Cinderella story" quote from Caddyshack today already, so I'll go with this quote from TFA:

“Fuck Billy Martin! I’m here to play baseball, and if anybody doesn’t like it, I will fight him for his job!”

posted by Halloween Jack at 2:13 PM on February 16, 2015 [1 favorite]

Okay, it's official. Bill Murray IS a God.

I intend to win some bar bets with this one BTW so thanks!
posted by kinnakeet at 3:03 PM on February 16, 2015

So tonight’s his last night in Grays Harbor, and they’re having a dance contest at The Rocker Tavern. Bill just grabs this girl, never met her before, and he’s out there doing all these things, like break-dancing before anyone knew what that was. And of course he winds up winning the damn dance contest.

Bill Murray - he's like the uplifting version of the Man Who Fell to Earth, isn't he?
posted by kokaku at 3:28 PM on February 16, 2015 [1 favorite]

It's Groundhog Life, and he's getting near the last iteration.
posted by Trochanter at 4:33 PM on February 16, 2015 [3 favorites]

Bill Murray is a huge baseball fan -- he's part owner and employee of the St Paul Saints. Murray showed up at the final Midway Stadium game with predictable results.
posted by nathan_teske at 5:07 PM on February 16, 2015 [1 favorite]

Bill Murray is also part-owner of the Brockton Rox, which I think makes them infinitely cooler than that other Eastern Massachusetts baseball team which isn't partly-owned by Bill Murray.

Also: Brockton has had "CITY OF CHAMPIONS" as their official slogan for years before Boston co-opted the title. It even adorns the water tower..
posted by RonButNotStupid at 5:14 PM on February 16, 2015

I really think my favorite part of this story is that Bill Murray got to the ballpark and the first thing he thought is, "What kind of ballpark doesn't have beer?" So he brought a keg.
posted by ob1quixote at 9:15 PM on February 16, 2015

"But more important than the score of this game is to score at the big social at our place tonight. So, I want you guys to go out there and protect your balls at any cost. Bruce Lee, patron of self defense, pray for us!"

That whole story's pretty murrayesque, even for Bill Murray.

Okay, it's official. Bill Murray IS a God.

No, young grasshopper, merely a searcher. Apropos, there's a great line in Ebert's original review of Murray's The Razor's Edge that really captures the "murrayesque." Murray, Ebert writes, "plays the hero as if fate is a comedian and he is the straight man." It's meant as a criticism in that review, but I think it also describes one of the qualities that make Murray so delightful to watch, that makes him, in a way, our modern Chaplin.
posted by octobersurprise at 6:31 AM on February 17, 2015

Bill Murray is also part-owner of the Brockton Rox.

He was (maybe still is) part owner of the Butte, MT, baseball team and would go to one game a year where he'd throw the first pitch and then sell beer in the stands for a few innings. Saw it happen in maybe 1995 or 1996.
posted by msbrauer at 6:37 AM on February 17, 2015

From a comment earlier this year: Bill Murray on his first trip to Wrigley Field.
posted by sillygwailo at 12:29 PM on February 17, 2015