Keith Hernandez Explains How He Charmed Jason Alexander From “Seinfeld”

The Mets legend-turned-broadcaster Keith Hernandez recalled his early 1990s guest appearance on the venerable NBC comedy to Vulture and talked about his interactions with the actors. He makes a noteworthy cameo in the season three episode “The Boyfriend.”

Keith Hernandez Explains How He Charmed Jason Alexander From “Seinfeld”

Over the course of its nine seasons, Seinfeld featured a steady stream of guest stars, including Monica before Friends and a too interrogative bookman.

However, the sitcom’s third season may have featured the most memorable swing: Former MLB star Keith Hernandez played, well, former MLB star Keith Hernandez, who becomes involved with just about every character after a chance encounter with Jerry and George in a locker room of a sports team. The triple play of pathways for the mustachioed Mets legend appears in “The Boyfriend.”

“Larry [David] was very friendly and welcoming. Jerry [Seinfeld] was a little sheepish but welcoming. Julia Louis-Dreyfus was about three months pregnant with her first child, I believe. She probably wasn’t feeling that great, but she was wonderful to work with. Jason Alexander was a little standoffish most of the week,” Hernandez said.

“Michael Richards was very inquisitive about baseball. He knew nothing about it and questioned me throughout the week. He was interested in the lifestyle and what my profession contained. It was wonderful. He was very sweet, a nice man.”

Hernandez believes that by displaying respectable acting skills, he may have left an effect on Alexander, who played George Costanza.

“He probably had to work his way through bit roles, and here I come as a guest star, and who am I? A retired baseball player? I’m just speculating. But it all changed when we had to do the complete run-through in chronological order in front of the NBC executives on Friday night,” Hernandez said.

“I had to pass their litmus test and censors, and I didn’t make any mistakes. Jason came up to me with a big smile and shook my hand and said, ‘Nice going.’ From that point on, he was wonderful. I guess I had to prove myself. I realized I couldn’t hold them up and be terrible and not memorize lines. I had a lot of lines. It was a very, very stressful week.”

But he understood that the program had allowed him to break out of the city’s cultural elite’s sports cocoon.

“It gave me legs. It kept me out there, and people knew who I was. I was living in Manhattan and at Elaine’s [bar] all the time. That crowd was writers, actors, and people in the movie and Broadway industries,” Hernandez said.

“‘Seinfeld’ threw me right in with them. I had such a wonderful experience in my retirement up at Elaine’s with various people I was able to rub elbows with. I’m just a little kid from a beach town in Northern California, and here I am, having dinner with Sophia Loren one night, Clint Eastwood across the table, and chatting up Elia Kazan. Like, are you kidding?

“That  show is one of the greatest experiences of my life.”

According to Hernandez, Larry David believes that “The Boyfriend,” which aired in February 1992, was a significant turning point in Seinfeld’s career. Seinfeld, who was overcome with emotion upon meeting his baseball idol, has stated that “The Boyfriend” is one of his favorite episodes.

Hernandez, who has covered the Mets for SNY for 18 seasons as a commentator, even finds a positive similarity with himself. “Seinfeld gave me an extra life,” he claims. “When I retired, I thought I would be forgotten.”

 

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