LeBron James
This spot was originally reserved for Steph Curry and his lovely family, but LeBron James swooped in at the last moment and stole it right out from under them. Steph was going to play in the game, Riley was going to be a batgirl, and Ayesha was set to live-tweet it, umpires beware.
But LeBron James is king these days, after leading everybody in everything during the NBA Finals. He transcended the sport of basketball and earned himself a place in my top five celebrities I’d like to see play in this softball game. If Michael Jordan can take a couple years off in the middle of his NBA career, surely LeBron James could find time to appear in a celebrity softball game. We’ve seen him throw out a first pitch in Cleveland and he did not embarrass himself like Snoop Dogg, 50 Cent, Carly Rae Jepsen, Carl Lewis or Michael Jordan.
The thought of LeBron James as a baseball player has precedent. Two years ago, Jeff Sullivan of Fangraphs wrote an article trying to imagine how valuable James would be if he were as valuable as a baseball player as he is as a basketball player. Because of the ways basketball differs from baseball—a five-man lineup versus nine, the ability to run a team’s offense through a player like James in basketball—it’s practically impossible to create a baseball-playing LeBron James in terms of overall value.
Sullivan came up with two scenarios: a 23 WAR LeBron James and a 42 WAR LeBron James. The 23 WAR version of LeBron James would be a combination of peak Barry Bonds at the plate and peak Ozzie Smith in the field, and would never miss a game. The 42 WAR version of LeBron James is better than Barry Bonds at the plate, better than Ozzie Smith in the field, and also pitches 32 complete games with a better ERA than Clayton Kershaw.
That’s all hypothetical, of course, and just compares the value of LeBron James in one sport versus the other. When it comes to actual baseball-playing skill, he will have to prove he has more game than Snoop Dogg to impress me.
Next: Bill Murray