Just a day after the Dodgers received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, the stars came out to Dodger Stadium for the 50th annual Hollywood Stars Game on Saturday. The celebrity softball game followed the Dodgers 7-2 loss to the Cleveland Indians, but by the time honorary captains Dodgers catcher Russell Martin and first baseman James Loney returned to the field, they were back in game mode.
The strategy is simple. “Score more runs than the other team,” Loney says.
“You just have to try to look good,” says David Arquette who insists he hasn’t played baseball since playing in the Hollywood Stars game two years ago. “I mean it’s really shallow. You always do look bad. It’s ridiculous. I’ve already embarrassed myself several times.”
Martin and former MLB player and Dodger broadcaster Steve Lyons coached the Blue team that included Arquette, James Van Der Beek, Jon Lovitz, Tom Arnold and Cristian de la Fuente. Loney and former Dodger third baseman Ron Cey coached the White team that included James Denton, Adam Carolla, Kendra Wilkinson, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Carlos Mencia.
Martin and former MLB player and Dodger broadcaster Steve Lyons coached the Blue team that included Arquette, James Van Der Beek, Jon Lovitz, Tom Arnold and Cristian de la Fuente. Loney and former Dodger third baseman Ron Cey coached the White team that included James Denton, Adam Carolla, Kendra Wilkinson, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Carlos Mencia.
The rules are a bit different: six innings, no practice, bendable rules and utter chaos.“They just cheated right now!” says Loney after Dodger’s second baseman Delwyn Young sneaks in the lineup and scores a homerun to put the only point on the board for Martin’s Blue team who is down 3-1. “I might have to step in there.”
“That’s what I do,” Young says. “I pinch hit!”
“Who’s this guy?” asks Arquette when Young returns from the mound after his homerun. “Is he a real player?”
After being informed that Young is in fact a “real” Dodgers player, Arquette, a self-proclaimed Dodger fan, is a bit embarrassed. “Oh, I should know that,” he says. “The Dodgers change their players so often I can’t even keep track. But that makes it a lot easier when they’re actually professional baseball players.”
Dodger pitcher Joe Beimel has also come over to check on Martin’s team but won’t be getting in the game anytime soon.“Not a chance,” Beimel says eyeing the softball. “That ball is too big to be throwing around.”
There’s an abundance of water and towels around to help cool off the celebs from the sweltering temperature well-over 100 degrees.
“I can’t believe anybody wants to sit out here and watch the game,” Arnold says. “It’s so freaking hot. Most of the crowd is my ex-wives and they want checks.”
Lovitz, a fourth-row Dodgers season ticket holder, is a veteran of the celeb game. While he has yet to score a run for his Blue squad, he’s fine with bragging about his game-winning success in the past.
“I think the fence is farther away this year,” Lovitz says. “Two years ago I hit two homeruns but it seems a lot farther away.”
Former Dancing With the Stars contestant de la Fuente, used only one arm to hit an RBI single for the Blue team in the bottom of the 6th to bring the score to 3-2. De la Fuente played in the game despite receiving strict orders from his doctor, who also happens to be a doctor for the Dodgers, not to play since he is still recovering from surgery.“He said I shouldn’t bat or I shouldn’t catch but he didn’t say with one arm,” says de la Fuente who injured his arm on the show and is still wearing an arm brace. “After Dancing With the Stars I had to learn how to do everything with one arm. I got to the finals with one arm and then I was here and I was like, why is an injury going to limit me? Not even an arm, nothing should limit you ever.”
While his run wasn’t enough for his team to win, de la Fuente didn’t mind.
“It was worth it to hit a ball here,” he says.
Abdul-Jabbar went 0-2 in the game but claims he used to be a much better player.
“I probably could have pitched,” Abdul-Jabbar says. “I could throw it pretty hard. I just didn’t stick with it. Basketball came a lot easier.”
“He’s a monster,” says Arnold about his 7-2 opponent on the White Team. “He’s like a praying mantis so he has to bend over and he tends to bobble the ball a little bit. I was trying to hit it to him and I screwed up and he got it.”The NBA hall-of-famer’s defense helped the White team secure a 5-2 win over the Blue team, but Abdul-Jabbar insists he wasn’t the best player.
“Kendra,” says Abdul-Jabbar, referring to Hugh Hefner’s girlfriend Wilkinson of Girls Next Door fame. “She surprised us all!”
“I played my hardest,” says Wilkinson who plays every Tuesday on a rec team in L.A. “I could play any position. I’m so fast and I try every position. I’m very competitive. I love to have fun but I don’t like to lose.”
“Are you surprised you hit the ball at all?” Lovitz says to Wilkinson at the end of the game, clearly bitter about the Blue team’s loss to the Playmate.
“Are you surprised that you, uh fouled out?” Wilkinson says.
“Are you surprised your hooters didn’t get in the way of your swing?” Lovitz counters.
“Well obviously they helped,” Wilkinson replies. “They’re extra muscle.”
Whatever it was that helped the White team win, Loney was happy to walk away with at least one win for the day.
“It was a team effort,” says Loney who was satisfied with his team’s ten hits and five runs. “I’m 1-0 now so I might have to start my managing career later on.”
